AYangThang: See you next Thursday for another two chapters.

Original chapter length: 1,228
Revisited chapter length: 1,718

Chapter 2

There was only so much a person could do under the weight of the current circumstances. Blake had a thoughtful list of invectives for situations like this. She had murmured a good number of them under her breath in the last handful of hours. She aimed that frustration at her scroll, nearly cracking the screen in her raw grip.

"What. The. Hell." She snarled under her breath. "Pick up the god-damn phone."

For the umpteenth time, she received just Yang's answering machine. Was it the tenth call, or the twentieth? Blake had lost count with how many times she had re-dialed. Sucking in an annoyed breath, she slammed the scroll down and began to pace. In her mind she was slowly, meticulously, piecing together the chain of events that had brought her to this moment.

Strangely, more inexplicable things had happened during her time on this team. Ever since she had met these women, life had an uncanny knack for turning upside down. Frankly, she should have expected something like this sooner.

The tiniest little mew called her attention, and she looked up to see the baby looking at her expectantly. Wide crimson eyes looked at her, unaware of her precarious position in life. Blake's ears flattened back when the baby made another sound, calling for attention. With renewed vigor, she clutched her scroll and dialed Yang again. It went directly to voicemail, and she cursed under her breath once more.

"Yang's not picking up." Blake stated as another mew sounded from the child. The older Faunus withheld a growl so as not to scare her. "This is asinine."

Ruby could only nod, her focus more on the sad state of the kitchen. If they were going to keep the baby in the house, all of the garbage and piled up fast food boxes needed to go. With two bags of recycling built up as well, Ruby was amazed the kitchen hadn't been deemed condemned months ago. "That's why I keep saying we need to upgrade our scrolls."

"I thought that was hyperbole." Blake admitted, her error in judgment now biting her in the ass.

"Yeah, well it wasn't. The reception gets wonky as soon as you get out of the main cities." Ruby replied tiredly.

"Yang insisted you were stretching the truth to get a new one." Now that Blake knew otherwise, her ire had reached a new level. "When I get my hands on her, I'm going to staple that scroll to her ear, and plaster an antenna to the back of her head." She murmured hotly, rage in her tone. "Who goes wandering off the beaten paths like a lunatic?"

"The one who likes to live off the land." Ruby said with a tiny shrug, tossing away more fast food wrappers. "Don't worry, they'll hit the main city, and all those missed calls will pop up. I've also left a few for Weiss, too."

"Assuming the inevitable, fine…"

"You don't sound fine…"

"She's going to call back. When she does, what will we say to her, exactly?" Blake asked, looking at the babbling Faunus on the table before flicking her gaze over to Ruby. "This is not the sort of news you deliver over a scroll."

"I don't know…" Ruby said with a shrug, tying off a particularly smelly garbage bag. "I haven't gotten that far… I'm still trying to figure out how I'm taking all of this. I can't even imagine Yang."

"And?" Blake prompted.

"What?"

"How are you taking it?" Blake asked with no small amount of trepidation.

"I don't know." Ruby said softly. "I've always wanted a baby sister. I just never like this..."

"Huh, I thought you were happy being the youngest." Blake said, trying to drag her gaze away from the baby who kept mewing at her. She knew the child had a sense of smell... That she could tell who was and wasn't Faunus by that alone. Still, she had no intention of responding to the little one. "I was an only child, so I don't even know what it's like to have an older sister, much less a younger one."

Ruby latched onto the casual conversation like a leach. "I know a lot of people get all annoyed about being the middle child, but, I'd bet it would have been awesome from my perspective..." Ruby deposited everything outside before coming back and washing her hands. Then she began rummaging around in the fridge. "I guess it doesn't matter…"

"What do you mean?" Blake asked as she refolded the blanket around the baby.

"Yang and I made due with the fact that we would be it. We kind of had to." Ruby told her, not wanting to linger on unpleasant memories. "Dad couldn't deal with another spouse. No new mom, no new siblings." The woman offered a half-smile. As she closed the fridge door, a carton of milk in hand. "I won't lie, I don't think I would have been okay with having a different mom anyway."

"Ruby, you can't give that to the baby." Blake said, gesturing to the carton of milk and the clean rag Ruby had gathered. "She's a cat Faunus just like I am. We're lactose intolerant."

"You drink milk all the time." Ruby protested. "Besides, she needs to eat something."

"I get that, but you can't give her dairy products." Blake said again with a firm shake of her head. "We grow into eating dairy sometimes, but even then, we've got to be careful about it. For example, I can't drink anything thicker than one percent. If I did, I'd be in the bathroom all day…"

"Well then, what do you suggest?"

"Formula, since that's actually meant for babies." Blake shot out. "Preferably soy."

"We don't have any, and she's probably hungry." Ruby looked between the milk and the baby, completely conflicted. "What do you want me to do?"

Another little mew, and Blake turn her attention to the cub, who then began to purr happily. Blake could feel her temper slipping. She was tired, she was sore, and now she had a baby to worry about. "Well excuse me for failing to put baby crap on the shopping list last week. I didn't realize your extended family would be purring on the goddamn table!" She snapped, only to look down at the red-eyed child that was now in their care.

Ruby said nothing, jaw clenching under the weight of her own guilt.

When no retort came, Blake let loose a long held sigh. "I'm sorry, Ruby. That was uncalled for."

"I know she's dead… Raven… I saw her body... Buried her..." Ruby was quiet for a moment longer. "What am I going to tell Yang?"

"You tell her the truth, and you do it as gently as possible."

"What if that isn't good enough, Blake?"

"Is anything good enough?"

"I…" Ruby paused, at a complete loss. How could she truly answer that? "I don't know…"

"Neither do I…" Blake said, plucking at the blanket idly. "More importantly, what are we going to do until then? We don't have any baby stuff, and that's expensive. Besides that, you and I do a lot of charity work. We're not the ones pulling in the high salaries." No, that privilege went to Weiss, the real breadwinner of the team. Yang's profits were a close second. "How do we pull this off?"

Ruby didn't know that, either. "Well, if we stick to the basics…"

"Do you even know what those are?" Blake asked, feeling as though they were binging off more than they could chew. "Or how much it will cost?" It wasn't the only concern she had, either.

"No idea." Ruby admitted. "Add in a few baby guides to that cost, then."

"Cost aside, we have another problem. We're down one hunter from now on." That would promise a loss in income, and another drastic shift in the household.

"But that would cut four man missions out of the question…" Ruby shot back. "We need those."

"We can't exactly sling a baby over our backs and go fight Grimm..." Blake said, the reality of it all beginning to come into focus. "If she's family, don't have a choice. We can't very well get rid of her, but, we can't cart her around in the woods either."

"So, someone is going to have to say home." Ruby bit down on her lip in thought. "Well, never mind that for now. We need groceries."

At this, Blake gave a sarcastic laugh. "With what money?" She asked darkly, depositing her empty wallet onto the table. "I'm flat out broke. I know you are too."

"Weiss did leave the spare credit card…" Ruby said, looking up to where it was kept. The little rectangle hidden behind one of the tiles near the sink. "We could always use that."

"That's only for emergencies, but we don't exactly have a choice…shit…" Blake bit her lower lip.

She watched those little Faunus ears twitch. The baby looked a lot like Raven, Faunus appendages aside. That alone inspired a world of questions that Ruby just wouldn't have answers for. Now, no one would, and she didn't dare think of what that might do to Yang.

The blonde's dealings with Raven hadn't exactly been positive. Over the years, they crossed paths like ships in the night. Neither one of them stopping long enough to fully regard the other. If only they had taken the time to have a good long talk about the past, then maybe this would all be easier. However, that had never been the case, and Yang had always been yearning for explanations that Raven would never give.

The woman's exploits seemed to come and go as time went on. The occasional murmur, and mile long bar tab cropping up from time-to-time. Yang collected the details as best as she could, but they had never been enough. Now, even that faint hope would end. So would the thinning paper trails to go along with it. For Yang, Raven was still a mystery that would never be solved.

Blake hated even thinking about it. Then again, she had other, more important things, to be thinking about.

"…Ruby?"

"Yeah…"

"You didn't happen to pack a diaper bag or anything like that, did you?" Blake wondered as a realization wafted to her nose.

"I wasn't going to stay around there any longer than I had to." Ruby murmured, ear to her scroll. If they couldn't get a hold of Weiss and Yang, maybe she could get her uncle to pick up. "Why, is something up?"

Blake's aggravated sigh permeated the room once more. "She just peed."