AYangThang: Surprise update! Only one chapter, but I wanted it up. Here's the thing, this fiction is huge. It's so much longer than it used to be. You've got to figure, the other one was well over 60k without author's notes, at 29 chapters. This re-write easily surpasses 60k way before then. This thing's just massive, in both chapter length, and in the scope of the story. Anyway, hope you like the fly-by update. See you all on Thursday for a double post.

Significant Changes: This chapter contains context clues, more dialogue, and the first segment of Faunus speech passed between Blake and the baby (Ace).

Original chapter length: 1,439
Revisited chapter length: 2,495

"Regular dialogue" [Faunus speech only]

Chapter 5

Being a huntress was not a simple profession, and no one who entered into the dangerous trade took their futures lightly. Upon graduation, diploma fresh in hand, aspiring hunters had two choices.

The first was to become hunters for hire, working for profit. This was the most common choice for the young newly minted graduates. There were more job opportunities for those seeking honest work. It helped that many wanted the fame that came as part of working with other high-profile hunters. The pay was comfortable, and so were the accommodations offered from village-to-village.

The second was to become hunters for charity, working for, or below the cost of the mission. This was an option that was less sought after. A young huntsman would never make ends meet doing charity work alone. That was just impossible. Travel across Remnant wasn't exactly cheap. Airfare was only one cost of many. Combined with food, a place to sleep, weapon care and many other expenses, everything added up. Often the huntresses took a loss on funds when taking charity work. A hot meal and a warm bed were sometimes the only guarantee, if that was even possible at all.

Team RWBY stuck together after graduation, as many hunter teams tended to do. Ruby and Blake took payment when it could be afforded, and accepted when it couldn't be. They had registered as huntresses for charity. Weiss and Yang worked for profit only, unless there was a mission that Ruby or Blake insisted on. Something that might require a four man team.

Even hunters that worked for profit didn't live wealthy lives. They couldn't. It was accepted and understood that only particularly large or dangerous Grimm offered huge payouts. Even that had to be divided among those involved in the slaying. They lived comfortably enough, but, that didn't mean they could be tactless with their earnings. Because of this, Weiss and Blake took care of the book keeping.

Between the four of them, it was normally comfortable way to live. All-in-all, there was one only one true complaint among all of them.

They lived in an old house. Two bedrooms, one bathroom. It wasn't unusual for a hunter to live in such housing. After having lived in a dorm for four years, one might even call it cozy. They'd gotten used to the idea of no privacy, but, even the best of friends got sick of each other.

For Ruby, it was one of those kinds of nights.

With every step Weiss made, a bare foot would make contact with a squeaky floorboard in desperate need of replacement.

"Ugh, Weiss..." Ruby groaned, rolling over and flopping onto her belly.

"What?"

"Stop pacing around." Ruby complained. "I'm trying to sleep. Lay down already."

Every second step, Weiss took a breath out of pain. Every third, the floor would creek again. Ruby's ears were assaulted by the noise, predictable as it was.

"I'm not tired." Weiss said as her pacing continued. "I'm thinking, and I do that better while moving."

"Do you have to be so loud about it?"

"Apparently…"

"Then go pace around in circles somewhere else."

"I said, no."

"Weiss…" Ruby grunted lifting her face from her pillow. "You may not be tired, but I am. Either lay down, or go away. I don't really care which one you decide to do."

The white haired woman scowled, licking her lip as she leaned heavily on the corner of Ruby's bedpost. She looked at her exhausted friend, perhaps taking in Ruby's world weary features for the first time. "Hey, tell me something. Do you truly believe that the Faunus in the living room is Yang's half-sister?"

"No, she's a lonely little orphan from the moon." Ruby groused sarcastically, rubbing her eyes.

"Ruby…"

"Yes, that's our sister." The leader huffed, dragging her hands across her face with a long held sigh. "Now stop being dumb, okay?" With this, she buried her face back into her pillow. "I really need to get some sleep…"

"It isn't dumb to be thorough." Weiss shot back as she began to pace again. Her foot hitting that same creaky floorboard. "Technically, would she even be your sister?"

"Why wouldn't she be...?"

"Because..." Another soft breath of pain followed soon after by silence. A heartbeat later, there came a clarification. "Legally speaking, I mean…"

Ruby sat up, squinting in the dark at Weiss incredulously. Only a small lamp lit up the room, located on desk in the corner. "I don't know, and I don't care. She's Yang's sister, and since Yang's my sister, it doesn't matter." Ruby told her, as if trying to drill the opinion into her partner's head. "Family's just family."

"While I do agree with the heartfelt sentiment, in the end, it would certainly matter to the courts." Weiss told her, pinching the bridge of her nose. "That Faunus isn't exactly your concern on paper. You don't share a blood relation."

The look Ruby fixed her with could have frozen hell right over. Weiss glared back, unimpressed. She knew that Ruby never quite cared for technical legalities. As a team, they had flagrant disregard for the law, bending and outright breaking it more than once. They had always found ways to justify the borderline criminal acts. It just didn't change the outcome that they had, in fact, broken the law. Yet, so long as it was for the greater good, they often didn't hesitate. Of course Ruby would consider this situation the same. black and white, with no in-between.

"Don't give me that crap." Ruby finally said, losing the battle of wits in a single blink. "We're family, okay? Go. To. Sleep."

"What if the child isn't related to Yang…"

"Weiss, they are related." Ruby deadpanned. "Trust me."

"But, what if?" Weiss asked. "What if she has a proper family out there? We will have to give her back to her proper family. You understand this, right?"

"Yes… I get it, okay?"

"Ruby, I'm just trying to think rationally." Weiss replied. "It could be a coincidence. It could be staged. A trap. Why would one lonely baby survive a massacre? What if she has affiliations with the White Fang, or worse? I don't want you giving this child, or Yang for that matter, false hope if there is none. For all you know, we could be meddling in something very dangerous."

Ruby blinked, dumbfounded. "Weiss… There's a better chance of a nevermore taking a huge shit on my head, than what you just described... Can I go back to sleep now?"

"How you can sleep at a time like this is beyond me…"

Ruby grabbed her pillow and flung off the sheets. Opening and closing the door behind her. She crossed the hall and went into the other bedroom where Blake and Yang bunked. Pairing off as bunkmates made sense. It was what they were used to. Now, however, Ruby really wished she wasn't roomed with Weiss, who was as high-strung as ever.

When she entered the second bedroom she noticed Yang's bed was empty. Blake's was occupied, but she was awake, nose pressed to a book.

"Oh, not you too! Doesn't anyone know what sleep is around here?" Ruby asked. "And where's Yang?"

"Yang is out in the main room." Blake said. "With the baby. At least, she was when I went to go check."

"Wait, what? She didn't think to bring the bassinet in here?" Ruby asked dumbfounded, and now grouchy. "She's not sleeping across that sofa is she?"

"The bay window, last I looked." Blake replied, idly turning the page. "I put a blanket around them."

"Them?" Ruby shook her head.

"She was sleeping curled inside the bay window, yes." Blake said again. "With the baby in her arms. I wasn't about to try to disturb the peace."

"Blake, correct me if I'm wrong, but... isn't there a crack... in the bay window?"

"That's why I gave them a blanket." She returned.

"So my sister is sleeping in front of a drafty, busted window with a baby…" Ruby trailed off, pressing the pillow to her face.

"That's about it, yes."

"Right, and that's full circle." Ruby said unhappily, her voice muffled by her pillow. There was only one thing to do, pretend it wasn't happening. Ruby claimed Yang's empty bed, hunkering down. "That's it, I'm going to bed before tonight gets any worse. Nighty-night Blake."

"You're sleeping in here?"

"Yes! Please, let me stay in here. I don't want to sleep on the sofa, and I'm not going back in my room." Ruby half grumbled and half begged. "Weiss is being... Well, for a lack of a better term, Weiss, and it's driving me nuts. So please, can I just lay down and close my eyes? Pretty please?"

"I see." Blake murmured, reaching over and turning out the light. Her eyes would adjust naturally soon anyway. "Well, alright then. Night, Ruby."

"Goodnight, Blake." Ruby sighed, thankful that the resident night owl was so accommodating. "And really, sooner or later, try to get Weiss to stop going in circles. She's going to make her ankle worse…"

It was nearly four in the morning when the baby girl decided to scream her head off, waking Yang with what could only be called yowling. Yang, for her part gingerly put the bay back in the soft bedding, eyeing her as if she was some sort of ticking time bomb.

[Silence!] The much lower pitched yowl bounced off the walls from down the hall, and the infant paused in her screeching.

Instead, tiny ears perked as the baby mewed in reply. [Hungry…]

Blake, now in the room made the same sound as before, but this time it seemed gentler. [Be quiet.]

The baby mewed in reply once more as Blake came into view. [Kin? Food?]

Golden eyes bore into red with a headed glare of aggravation. [Not Kin.]

Another little mew greeted her ears. [Kin?]

Blake grumbled another sound back in reply. [No...]

It was then that the elder Faunus turned to her friend. "Yang…" Blake said, bathrobe slung and tied haphazardly around her nightgown. "The baby's hungry."

"Yeah! Ya think?" Yang asked darkly. "What in the hell was that about?"

"It's the tone of her call." Blake said as she picked up a full bottle that had been rejected. "How long has this been out?"

"I dunno." Yang said, looking at the clock. "A few hours, maybe?"

Blake nodded, looking at the liquid inside. It had the faint smell of something sour. "I'll go make a fresh one."

Yang scooped the child back up and followed Blake into the kitchen anyway, frowning deeply at the implications. "I'm fine, you know."

"I know you are." Blake said quietly. "Or, at least, that you're trying to be."

"I could have made the bottle on my own..."

"I never said that you couldn't." Blake said dryly.

Yang swallowed back another retort. Blake wasn't going to ask anything uncomfortable, and she didn't seem to expect Yang to say anything, either. She should have known that her partner would know better than to ask anything too deep right now. It was a small relief, but one that Yang truly counted as a blessing.

"So anyway, what did you mean before?" Yang asked, changing the subject. "You said something about it being the tone of her call. What's that even supposed to mean?"

"It's exactly as I said. There's no hidden meaning." Blake looked over her shoulder to Yang, seeing the curiosity lingering there. It was better than rage or depression at the very least. Indulging in a small explanation certainly couldn't hurt. "I can understand her because I'm a cat Faunus. Her noises are actually similar to words for me… At least, in a way..."

"Oh…" Yang said thoughtfully. "Kind of weird, but, okay."

"If you haven't noticed, this entire situation could qualify as weird." As Blake said that, back turned and measuring out the powdered mix, she was sure to weigh her own thoughts carefully. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"That fact that you two were just…" Yang looked down at the baby and then back at Blake. "Well, whatever the hell that was?"

"Jerk…" Blake chastised quietly, but there was no heat in her tone. "I know exactly what you're doing. Don't use the fact that I'm a Faunus to avoid me."

"Not trying to…" Yang said, her fingers tracing patters along the countertop.

"Hmm. Doubtful." Blake told her. "You know what I'm asking, Yang."

"Yeah…" Yang sighed. "Yeah, I guess I should talk about it. I mean, it's normal to feel all screwed up after a day like yesterday, right?"

"I would like to think so..."

"To be honest, I don't really know what I'm thinking, though." Yang said awkwardly. "It's not like I was thinking anything too complicated. It's just, what's the point of knowing?"

"Hmm?"

"If she's my sister..." Yang told her. "If she really is or not. What's the point? I just don't think I want to know… That's all."

Blake's ear flicked. Swiveling to better catch Yang's soft words.

That was the most telling action Yang would ever receive. Confusion and trepidation all rolled into one. Blake said nothing to any of it, so Yang knew it was an invitation to keep going. Only if she wanted to.

"My mom was involved. That's reason enough not to know." Yang sighed, angry at the very idea. "This kid's here now, no matter what."

"Is that so?"

"Her parents are gone, Blake." Yang shot back. "Raven was dead in the house. It doesn't matter if we're related or not..."

"If it doesn't matter, why are you so bothered by it?" Blake asked.

"Her family's gone…" That was the one thing Yang truly found herself stuck on. She just couldn't fathom the cost. "They're gone and they're not coming back. What are we going to do if those tests come back negative, Blake,? Toss her out on the street? Wash our hands of her? I'm NOT Raven…"

"Yang, you need to know." Blake told her placidly, handing Yang the warmed bottle. "We all do."

"I don't know about that..."

"Raven has left you with way too many questions you'll never have the answer for. Don't let this be one of them."

"Blake-"

"No, listen to me. The answer doesn't have to change the outcome." The Faunus interrupted softly. Her hands falling onto Yang's shoulders, gripping her just hard enough to catch lilac eyes. "I'm not saying that all of this has to hinge on bloodline. Whatever you want to do, I'll help." Blake said firmly. "No matter what, I'll help you through this. The choice is yours, but for the sake of knowing, Yang..." Blake took a breath, looking down at the baby who suckled at the bottle. "Just find out for sure, okay?"

Yang licked her lips and sighed. A single word falling from her lips caked with uncertainty. "Okay..."