[X] Miltia
There was a beeping sound echoing through the room as Yang regained consciousness. Everything was blurry, and focusing on anything was difficult. The beeping blended together past a certain point, and she stared up at an unfamiliar rooftop.
Where... Was she?
She tried to move her arm up, but wasn't able to feel anything. Her head was all fuzzy. She tried to sit up, but couldn't bring herself to move. Keeping her eyes open was a struggle.
"Ugh..." She groaned, as she opened her eyes. To her left, there was a sudden, surprised movement. Yang tried to move her head across, but moving was hard.
"...Who..." She tried to wheeze out, before trailing off.
"...Hey." Miltia's voice responded.
Yang focused some more, moving her hand to clench her fist and drive nails into her palm to wake herself up some more. She barely felt anything.
"Can't feel..." Yang muttered, as she twisted her head to turn to Miltia.
"They've probably mixed in some painkillers with the blood they're pumping into you." Miltia noted.
"...Barely feel." Yang noted, shaking her head a bit to think harder. "Need to... Clear head."
"Try to sit still." Miltia advised. "I don't know how badly hurt you are. You could start making things worse again if you moved about."
"...How bad was-" She paused, suddenly remembering being stabbed in the stomach. "...Right. Dito."
Remembering things were hard. She was stabbed. That spear, Dito's spear, someone else had used it at some point? It'd been pointed at Dito, by-
"Ruby!" Yang suddenly shouted, struggling upwards. Something stopped her from moving anything below her head, and she looked down to see some sort of machine pinning down her torso.
"That's some sort of machine to repair your-"
"Where's Ruby?" Yang interrupted, cutting Miltia off from the pointless stuff. "Where's my sister? Is she-"
"She's alright." Miltia assured her. "She didn't leave your side for the first three days, and spent more time here than not in the next few as well. I'll expect she'll be here any moment now."
"Where is she?" Yang insisted.
"She should be in the building." Miltia continued. "Your uncle was hurt bad too, needed a surgery of some sort, and he's here until everyone's sure there's no complications. She's likely going to be coming right here as soon as she's done talking with him."
Yang relaxed, lying back down and ceasing her struggle. "Is she alright?"
"She's not hurt, if that's what you mean." Miltia explained. "I don't know enough about her to see if she's stable after the time spent in Five's captivity, but she's doing better then my sister, at least."
Yang took a moment to breath. She couldn't get any more information out of Miltia. She wouldn't have information.
"...How is your sister?" Yang asked. "Is she alright?"
Miltia paused for a moment.
"She's..."
Her breath shuddered, as she thought about it for a moment.
"...I can't stand it." She said. "She's just..."
"Are you alright?" Yang asked, trying to move for a moment before again running into the issue of the machine strapped around her torso.
"I don't want to see her like that." Miltia admitted. "She'll be fine one moment, but once you start talking about Five or Two or their songs she just gets twitchy and starts... She's not supposed to be like that."
Yang felt a pang of pity in her heart. "...You sound like you could use a hug."
"No thanks." Miltia sighed. "I'll be fine. It's just... Can I stay and talk for a while, at least?"
"Sure, go ahead." Yang said. She sounded like she needed a distraction.
Miltia sat down on a nearby chair and looked down.
"Melanie was always the stronger one." Miltia admitted. "She's not supposed to be... You know. Like that. She's meant to be the reliable one."
"The sister you admire?" Yang asked.
"Yeah." Miltia continued. "Like that. She's always the... She's confident. Assertive. People would roll right over me if I didn't have her sticking up with me sometimes. And now she's..."
"That sucks." Yang nodded, as Miltia trailed off. "I... I'll be honest, I don't know what I'd do in your shoes, if Ruby was all messed up."
"It sucks." Miltia muttered. "Everything sucks. My sister's in a terrible state and I can't do anything, I'm so desperate to avoid looking at her that I'll pop in and look at a girl in a coma or something to just be doing anything else, and..."
"You're strong." Yang cut in. "You're holding together well enough. Do you have anyone else you can talk to about it, or have you been handling this by yourself?"
"...There's Junior, kinda." Miltia went on. "But he's busy a lot, and doesn't really know what to say anyway."
"Well, I think I might have a bunch of free time in the future." Yang noted, looking at the machine over her torso. "If you need someone to talk to, just give me a call.
Miltia was silent for a moment.
"...Sorry." Miltia said, after a moment. "You've been out for a week and we talk about my problems. You probably would've preferred to wake up to a loved one, wouldn't you?"
"That doesn't matter." Yang counted. "If you need someone to talk to-"
A door opened, and both people looked over to it, as a girl in a red hood walked in. After a moment, she looked over at Yang on the bed, and her eyes went wide.
"Yang!" She shouted, rushing forward with what was probably Semblance-induced speed to rush to her side, and give her a hug.
"I'm so glad you're okay!" She exclaimed, pulling Yang's head up to give it a hug. "I was so worried, I thought you were..."
Her breath hitched, and Yang felt a tear hit her face as Ruby looked down at her.
"It's okay." Yang interrupted, reaching up to hug Ruby. "It's okay. I'm okay. You're okay everyone's okay."
Ruby shook for a moment, and tried to smile through some tears.
"I missed you." Ruby said softly. "I..."
"It's okay." Yang continued. "I'm not going to let anything happen. I won't let anyone hurt you again."
"I-It's not me, though..." Ruby sniffed. "You've been unconscious for a week and nobody will tell me how bad you're hurt, a-and Qrow didn't tell me until yesterday that they had to remove his arm because of what Dito did and all the people who heard Five's songs keep acting weird if Two doesn't visit them often enough and Two's always looking sad, she tried to talk to Five but couldn't get anything out of her, and..."
She trailed off, and Yang rubbed her sisters back.
"It's okay." She said. "It's over. Five can't hurt you anymore."
"...Why did she kidnap me in the first place?" Ruby asked. "She said something about my eyes, and... Two said she looked sad for a moment when she asked Five, but..."
"Don't worry about it." Yang continued.
They stayed silent for a moment, before Miltia cleared her throat in the corner.
"Should I just leave?" She asked.
Ruby looked up at Miltia. "Uh, sorry, I-"
"No, it's fine." Miltia interrupted. "You and your sister have been reunited at last. You two can be happy now. Enjoy it."
She stood up to leave, but Ruby let go of Yang and caught her arm as she turned to leave.
"Hey, sorry, where you talking to Yang?"
"Don't mind me." Miltia dismissed. "You've got your happy ending. Don't worry about me."
"You helped." Ruby interrupted. "Even if you were just trying to find your sister, you still helped when you came with Yang. I... Thank you. And I'm sorry. If you need me to help with anything-"
"Forget it." Miltia replied, pulling herself away from Ruby and continuing to leave. "I... Just forget about me."
She left, and Ruby and Yang watched her walk away.
"...I should talk to her." Yang groaned.
There was another set of footsteps outside, and they looked back and watched the door, as Taiyang walked in.
"Rub-"
He paused when he saw Yang, and smiled.
"Yang! You're awake?"
"I'm sleeptalking." Yang replied. Taiyang blinked, chuckled a bit.
"Thank goodness. You're making terrible jokes, you're fine."
"I thought I'd start with jokes around your level of humour." Yang replied, with a grin.
"I'm in a hospital." Ruby pointed out. "If I stab my ears out with a fork, there won't be any long-term consequences which I don't want."
Yang smiled. "I missed this."
Taiyang smiled for a moment longer, before his face fell and he walked up besides Yang.
"So how bad am I hurt anyway?" She asked.
"You probably can't tell, because of all the painkillers and all." He said. "But the doctors were saying that you shouldn't do any strenuous activity. So if this was all your plan to get out of school for another month-"
"Are you kidding?" Yang asked. "I've got the lamest dad in the world, I'm just going to get a month of theoretical stuff without the fun punchy bit."
"What a shame." Taiyang noted.
"But seriously." Yang asked again. "How bad?"
"...You might not want to eat solids for a while." He admitted. "Doctor's recommendation. You need to be careful what you eat, or you'll put too much pressure on your stomach and tear it open. Don't get hit around there, either. Aura should let you walk around without risking anything, but don't let that get too low. And things'll likely hurt a lot if you're not on painkillers, but you'll probably only be allowed them for a bit longer."
"...Ah." Yang winced. "So, how bad was I? Do I want to know?"
"Probably not, no." Taiyang noted.
Ruby's breath hitched again at that comment.
"...I'm sorry, Ruby." Yang said. "I don't want to worry you-"
"It's not your fault." She said. "It's-"
She cut herself off, looking up at Taiyang.
"...It's fine." She finished.
That's not what she was going to say. That's not even remotely what she was going to say.
She really needed to talk to Ruby sometime. But for now, she just wanted to focus on being happy.
"So..." Ruby started again, looking to change the topic. "How was your trip outside Vale, Yang?"
The girl on the bed blinked.
"...I'd forgotten about it, to be honest." She admitted. "A lot happened. I went to a fight club, I sneaked out and talked with criminals..."
"You're grounded forever." Taiyang noted.
"You're just jealous that your childhood wasn't this interesting." Yang grinned. "Ta-I'm thinking the most exciting thing you'd ever done in your youth is hold a girls hand?"
"Such a delinquent." Taiyang sighed. "I don't know where I went wrong with her. Ruby, please, I'm Long-ing for someone in this family to behave."
"Hey, don't try and make me Yang-ry."
Ruby groaned, putting her head in her hands. "Why me?"
"You know you missed this." Yang said with a smile.
"...Yeah." Ruby confirmed. "I... I missed you. Both of you."
She looked up from her hands, tears falling from her eyes again. "I hadn't seen you since you left... T-Then the first time I see you again is you almost dying a-and..."
Taiyang knelt down to give his younger daughter a hug, and after a moment, Yang tried talking.
"Hey." Yang called up. "I upgraded Ember Celica a bit while looking for you."
Ruby looked over at her. "What?"
"Made a few adjustments." She said. "Got another weapon to compare with while out on my trip, used it as a base for a few touch ups. You wanna have a look at it, see if you could figure it out?"
Ruby's eyes lit up. "Yeah. Can I-"
"It's all yours." Yang said. "I bet you'd like a chance to make it better."
Ruby nodded.
"Speaking of which." Yang continued. "Any new ideas on that weapon idea of yours?"
"I've reaffirmed that a weapon is better with more range then my fists." Ruby noted.
"That's what shooting is for." Yang pointed out.
"Only if you lack creativity." Ruby replied with a smile. "And besides, maybe you can turn getting hurt into a good thing, but in my case, more range is especially important, because with enough range, I can control the flow of battle, using my speed to stay at an optimal range. On top of that, gauntlet weapons rely almost entirely on the strength of the user, whereas a bigger weapon in my hands would have more mass and compensate for my lack of physical strength..."
She continued on for some time, and for a while, the father and two daughters were happy.
Yang will do a lot of things in the next few days, as she leaves hospital, talks with people, and recovers. but at some point, she will pay a visit to the holding cells to have a conversation with a certain Intoner. Why?
[X] She wanted answers regarding how Ruby was kidnapped. There was a good deal of aggression too, she wanted to yell at someone.
[X] Two called Yang and asked for a favour. She hadn't been able to get answers out of Five, and thought some help might do the trick.
[X] Qrow was interrogating her as part of the standard legal procedure, and he invited Yang and Ruby along to observe this part of the job