Significant Changes: Like previous chapters, this content is mostly new.
Original chapter length: 2,076 Revisited chapter length: 2,964
"Regular dialogue" [Faunus speech only]
Chapter 11
They had agreed as a team to figure things out, but, that was proving difficult. Each new day presented a new string of challenges. The baby in their care was one small concern of many. Life needed to go on, and the job of a huntress had never been perfect to start with. They had plenty of other problems that needed taking care of. The ailments of life waited for no-one, and neither did the uptick of expenses and mission calls.
Ace was cute, but, she was also a handful.
"I think we should buy a proper crib." Weiss announced tapping the tip of a black ink pen against a pad of paper.
The four women sat around the table discussing expenditures. It happened once at the end of every month, but this conversation proved to be especially difficult. With a fifth mouth to feed and look after, money was getting tighter. Larger purchases would need to be handled with care, and there was a short list of them already.
"We already have a crib." Ruby told her. "We don't need another one."
"We have one made for camping in a tent." Weiss told her, flicking her expression to the flimsy object siting in the living room. "It's by no means sturdy or meant to last as a long term solution. I can't imagine it'll do her any good as she gets older, either. I get the impression that she doesn't like it."
"What? Weiss, no way." Ruby protested, her glass of milk half-finished as her fist in the table. "We only get one big purchase a month, and you promised we could fix that stupid floor in our bedroom."
"Plans change." Weiss said with a soft shrug.
Ruby glared, cursing under her breath as she lifted the glass to her lips once more. "I'm tired of listening to the squeaking floor every time you decide to walk in circles." It was only after she emptied the rest of her drink that she sighed. "It's annoying, and I don't want to put up with it if I don't have to."
"That's true, and we did agree to fix the floor before Ace came along." Blake agreed, holding the little culprit that saw fit to keep them up at night. She sucked away on her bottle, completely oblivious to the discussion going on around her. "It's only gotten worse now that we have her with us. We could do with replacing a few of the boards in the hallway, too. We'd all probably sleep better at night if we couldn't hear whoever happens to be walking the house with her."
"You mean that you would sleep better at night." Yang said pointedly as she got up to rummage around in the fridge. "I don't hear anything as long as the door's closed."
"See, this is why I only do circles of the kitchen, and living room." Ruby pointed out, giving Weiss a withering look. "Those bits of floor don't squeak."
The fizzling of a newly opened beer bottle and the sound of the cap crashing onto the table called the room to order. Yang took a long swig before coming back to sit down with the rest of them. "So, guys, this is the last time I'm saying this." Yang said slowly. "We need a new roof."
"I keep telling you, we can't afford a roof." Weiss told her.
"Then we've got to save for it." Yang told her. "We can't keep putting it off anymore."
"Uncle Qrow promised we could get a few more years out of it." Ruby shot back. "But I won't last a few months without new floor in the bedroom."
"Uncle Qrow said that two years ago…" Yang said. "You're going to be singing a different tune when the roof caves in on us."
"Yeah, but I have a hunch that the floor planks may be rotting out from underneath…" Ruby said.
"Considering all of the water damage we had to fix last year, I don't doubt it." Weiss said under her breath.
"Then we'll patch that up too when someone falls through it." Yang said, refusing to budge on the matter. "We can avoid bad floorboards, we knew they weren't the best when we moved in. The roof is total crap, and that's not a repair job we can afford unless we save for it."
"Can't you give it a quick fix one more time, Yang?" Blake asked.
"If could do it, I would have." The blonde said. "I can't keep patching it. We're going to have to get it professionally re-done."
"Cribs are on sale right now, which is why I think we should make that purchase while we can." Weiss replied, placing the advertisement in front of everyone to see. "Besides, repairs may end up being more costly than we can comfortably afford right now. A crib easily fits into the budget. The rest of it we can save for next time…"
"We have no room for a crib, Weiss…" Ruby bit out. "Where would we stick it?"
"On Yang's apparently broken roof." Blake said sarcastically. "As useless as it would be, there's no point to getting one… Ace probably wouldn't sleep in it anyway. She'd probably hate it just as much as the fold-one we already have."
"We can't keep putting her in bed with us…" Weiss shot back.
"Why not? That's what cat Faunus do." Blake asked. "Little cat Faunus don't sleep alone. They're with their parents or siblings until they're old enough to run away from danger on their own. Even then, good luck getting her to stay in her own bed."
"What danger, Blake?" Weiss asked, throwing the resident cat Faunus an exasperated glare. "Why would she need to run away from anything in this house?"
The Faunus only shook her head. "It's just an instinct, Weiss. Why do you think she hates being put down? The safest place is always going to be with family. If you take that away from her, she's going to make racket until you come back and get her. She'll last maybe an hour a night in a crib, if you're lucky."
"I do hope you're joking…" Weiss protested, but amber eyes lingered on her longer than she would have liked. a dry expression lingering there. "She can't keep sleeping in our beds with us."
"That's just the way she is. Cat Faunus never to let their babies out of their sight. In our minds, dependency comes with mobility. Until she can come to us, someone's always going to be with her. If she's alone for too long, she'll think somethings really wrong. That's just how Faunus are."
Weiss let a long suffering sigh fall from her lips as she put her face in her hands. The news hadn't been what she was hoping for, and with a long intake of air she looked to her teammates with tired eyes. She crossed the crib off the list, the point of her pen tapping against the pad of paper. She ran some number in her head, jotting them down and scowling at the answer.
"It can't ever be easy, can it? Fine then, here's what we'll do." She said, turning the notepad around for the others to see. "We will fix the floorboards in the bedroom only, and put the rest of the funds into savings. Then, next month we'll do the floors in the hall, and call around for an estimate on the roof. Then we'll start saving for it, and get that done before it begins snowing. Is everyone alright with that?"
A round of agreeance from the rest of the members at the table couldn't have come fast enough…
"Good then." Weiss said. "Next item on the agenda, this month's mission details…"
Ruby visibly winced. "Yeah, about that, we have something else we need to do first…"
Missions were their bread and butter, but no one could hunt without being in good health. They certainly didn't want to bring anything home, either, least harm come to Ace.
With the thin medical folder in hand, and plenty of questions about Ace, a doctor's visit was quickly in order. There was no telling the sorts of things they might expose her to. It was a concern that was best addressed sooner rather than later. She was too young to have proficient use of her aura, unlocking it would be pointless. Any passive protection it may offer was not going to be enough to keep her from getting sick.
For that, she needed to have a healthy immune system.
Weiss paced the house with a very upset baby in her arms. It was inconceivable that Ace could be so inconsolable, but, here she was, screeching her little lungs out. Weiss only bit her lip, smoothing over the small square of gauze that covered her arm. Ace flailed unhappily, ears folded downward instinctively as she continued to fuss. It was the first of countless inoculations the little girl would receive if she wished to stay in the heart of Vale. The cities were often teaming with sickness that the smaller villages never had exposure to. As huntresses, they were also possible carriers of disease. Medical intervention was the only way to keep Ace safe from exposure to the countless ails than ran rampant across the kingdoms.
The pediatrician they'd chosen was an old family friend. A woman who had treated both Yang and Ruby before their training began at Signal. The elderly old woman had warned them that babies tended to run low fevers and become rather fussy after receiving a shot, but Weiss had underestimated the severity of that claim.
She had brushed the warning off. She assumed it was the rudimentary disclaimer handed down from doctor to patient. She had certainly been hospitalized enough to have listened to plenty standard warnings in the past, same as her teammates. Side effects were usually mild to moderate, if any occurred at all.
But, with Ace so upset, Weiss couldn't help but feel a pang of concern.
This was unlike the small cat Faunus who was usually fairly easy to entertain. Ace was usually happy to just be held. Overjoyed to be given even the slightest attention. A scratch behind her ears made her day. Now, nothing seemed to make her happy.
"Here, I've got a bottle ready." Yang said, coming down the hallway.
"I highly doubt she wants it." Weiss sighed, adjusting the small child in her arms. The action only made her screech louder in response. Weiss took hold of the offered bottle anyway, seeing the failed endeavor for what it would be as Ace flinched away from it with another unhappy screech. "Alright, alright… Shhhh… See, she doesn't want it Yang."
"Where in the hell is Blake?" Yang groused, taking the bottle back and looking to Ace with concern. "It doesn't take this long to get bread from the corner store."
"She hasn't even been gone the long." Weiss said looking at her watch as best as she could at the awkward angle. "It's not like we sent Ruby, which, probably would have been the better idea in hindsight."
"Here, let me try." Yang said, taking the crying little one from her already exasperated teammate.
"Five lien says you're both driving yourselves crazy for nothing." Ruby called from her place, laying halfway across the sofa with a magazine in hand. "I mean, every time Yang gets a shot, her semblance freaks out on her… I'd be willing to bet it's probably something like that."
"But we don't know that for sure, Ruby." Weiss said.
"And Blake told you not to worry." The team leader replied, putting down what passed for reading material. "Blake's been mostly right about stuff so far, you really going to doubt her now?"
"No, you're right." Yang bit her lip as she began to take the same redundant path that Weiss had been making moment before. Up and down the long stretch of hallway. "She's just upset, and shots always make people feel crappy afterward… Everything will be alright…"
What were they, if not a team?
If not a strange slapped together family?
They were a jumble of souls that fate had collided together for karma to laugh it. After all, a pair of half-sister was tragic enough in the Xiao Long household when they were children. A lonely cat Faunus raised among extremists, and an ex-heiress willfully disowned from her family name were just added layers.
Just more irony, another cog in the scheme. Life, getting a good hard laugh at their expense.
And that was fine, there was nothing wrong with their lot in life. They were all happy, more or less. Yet, when four souls became five, and two sisters become three, it was a whole lot harder to laugh back in its face.
It wasn't funny anymore…
But it was reality…
And it was the future.
Figuring stuff out as they went along wasn't always easy, but, trust was the backbone of many things. Blake said that Ace was probably alright, and, Blake hadn't been wrong yet.
The next day, Ace was calmer, almost lethargic. The little Faunus yawning from her place in the sling. Then again, Yang couldn't help but feel the same as she was slow to finish cleaning up the kitchen. She was almost too tired to care when Weiss came back from the store with the weekly baby necessities.
Learning on the fly could only help them so much, and Weiss had taken studying to a new extreme. The white haired woman attempted to gain an almost encyclopedic knowledge of all the parenting books in the house. It was a small stack, nothing compared to the stacks of school books Weiss used to amass. Still, her fortitude was impressive, absorbing the books like sponge.
As a result, it seemed like there was no end to the baby supplies invading their small home.
Every time Yang turned around, there was a new object that had appeared out of nowhere. Plastic grocery bags had become something of a magician's hat. She never knew what Weiss was going to pull out next. It happened so frequently that the household almost made a twisted game of it. The blonde could only frown as she took a scrub-brush to the new bottles that Weiss had brought home on a whim.
The purchase was probably unnecessary, but like everything else Weiss had gotten, the new formula bottles were here to stay.
"What in the hell was wrong with the old ones?" Yang grumbled, looking over her shoulder as the short woman unpacked the rest of her new discoveries.
"You mean besides the fact that they were the cheapest ones in the store? Weiss deadpanned.
"We were on a budget." Blake protested from her place at the kitchen table. "And we still are."
"These are the ones her doctor told us to try. Ace has been having terrible indigestion for weeks, and I've figured out that the problem is likely the bottle." Weiss replied, waving one of the cheap ones that Blake and Ruby had bought in their hurry. "They were good in a pinch, but, we need to consider long-term solutions now." She tossed it and the three others like it in the trash. "These new bottles are less likely to cause gas, and it's got an anti-colic nipple. They're better for her."
"If you say so…" Yang trailed off, confused. "Just don't see what the problem was with the other one."
"You get up at 4 am, feed her yourself, and find out." Blake said between bites of food, scarfing down half a sandwich before a quick midday mission took up the rest of her time.
"Indeed, I never knew someone so small could produce such projectile spittle." Weiss agreed dryly, unearthing a new brand of formula. "I've also picked up the new formula and few burp cloths."
"I think she's starting to outgrow her onesies, too." Yang sighed.
"I found these extenders, so that should help with the length a little bit." Weiss shrugged, slapping the small packet onto the counter an crumpling up the plastic back to store it away safely. "It's better than buying new ones, at any rate."
"So, is that the formula the doctor recommended?" Blake asked, grabbing the canister and looking it over for herself.
"One of them." Weiss said. "When Yang and I took Ace in, she gave us something of a list. This one just happened to be the most affordable. If we have to switch again, we're talking about a huge jump in price." She sighed then, looking over the grocery bill. "Baby formula isn't cheap."
"Baby food isn't either, not that we have to worry about that for a while." Yang added. "The doctor said Ace needs to be four to six months old before we worry about that."
"Hmm, something about that screams human baby to me. I'd bet you anything that it'll be closer to four than six…" Blake said, shoving the last bite of her meal into her mouth and carrying her plate to the sink. "She's a cat Faunus like I am. We're predatory by our nature, and we can be entirely carnivorous by choice. Although, I'm not quite sure why someone would want to do that… I doubt she'll wait six months before trying to rip things apart."
"Says the one who just inhaled an entire can of tuna on a single slice of bread…" Weiss deadpanned under her breath. She knew Blake could hear her anyway.
"That's my point…" Blake shot back. "Alright, I'm off. I have a re-supply mission at the docks in downtown with Ruby. We might be late, don't wait up..."