Ruby Rose didn't know how to curtsy.

She thought about that a lot. In the odd hours of the night, she'd walk up to her mirror in her nicest, most ruffled skirt, and practiced curtsying. She imagined that it wasn't the orange painted walls adorned with posters behind her, but a large, high ballroom, complete with ornate chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. She imagined she wasn't in a big, slightly torn night shirt and black skirt, but instead a fancy, sleek dress, the colour of deep red wine. She'd bow, and bend her knees and stood on her tip-toes, and pretend her hair wasn't in a slight-too-long bob, but was worn in waves, cascading down beautifully onto her shoulders. She'd smile her best smile, walk her best walk, and curtsy. Or try to.

Sometimes she imagined what it was that Weiss saw, what it was that she knew. She knew how to curtsy.

A whole different life, far away from hers. A life that belonged somewhere else, that had shaped her into who she was. Sometimes Ruby thought Weiss wasn't learning how to act like who she was in Vale, but unlearning how to be who she was in Atlas. Sometimes Ruby wanted to know which was bigger. Which one Weiss truly belonged to. The question was on the tip of her tongue sometimes, in the quiet moments when they were alone. Not often, not in a large, pressing manner. But there. Sometimes insisting itself to be asked, sometimes shameful of its existence.

Ruby Rose didn't know how to curtsy.

She thought about that when she thought about Weiss and her. The mere shadow of that thought threatened to buckle her, to knock the wind out of her and flat on her ass. The ghost of a memory of an almost-kiss. Trembling hands, trembling breath, trembling heart. All of it shook in the wind, wanting nothing more than to carry itself on the next gale, to fly away and fly free and know that wherever it ended up was wherever it was meant to be anyway.

Ruby breathed. Moved backwards, retreated like she did, backing up and wanting to promise more, wanting more and more and more and feeling nothing but fear. Fear that it wasn't actually supposed to be like that. Fear that it was, and being the only one that thought that way. Fear that they both felt that way and it didn't work out in the end.

Ruby pushed those thoughts into the back of her mind.

It was a warm spring day when Weiss said, breathed really, "Winter."

Her eyes were on her phone, and she scanned the text she'd received back and forth, making sure and again sure that she wasn't mistaken. Ruby, Yang and Blake looked at her.

"Uh, what?" Ruby asked.

Weiss tore her gaze away from her phone, and she smiled wide. "Winter!" she exclaimed, thrusting her phone right into Ruby's face. Ruby blanched, pulling Weiss' phone back to get a read on the text.

"Weiss. I will be visiting you in Vale tonight. Ensure your living conditions are up to my standards," Ruby read aloud. Weiss almost squealed in excitement, and wow okay that wasn't a sound that she thought could ever come out from their resident Ice Queen. But there it was- Weiss Schnee in the flesh, squealing with barely concealed excitement, practically bouncing up and down in her seat. God it was cute. "Oh, your sister's in town?" Ruby asked, recovering gracefully in her mind before her mind went somewhere she didn't need it to.

"Oh, she must be on business, and in a good mood too!" Weiss brought her phone back, hugging it close to her chest. Both Blake and Yang gave her matching, puzzled looks.

"You got that from 'I will be visiting you in Vale tonight'?" Blake narrowed her eyes, her ears flattening against her head. It had been a couple months now since she decided to stop wearing the bow, but Ruby almost couldn't get used to how much more expressive she was. Now it all made sense- why she was always so cool in her emotions before. She was always so used to her ears doing the emoting for her.

"Don't be stupid," Weiss scoffed, rolling her eyes like, yeah, duh, obviously not. Ruby had to say, she still didn't fully understand, but she was happy for Weiss. "She wants to inspect my house!" she said then, like that was the most obvious indication of Winter's emotional state. Ruby blew a breath out. Yeah, no, she should have saved her previous statement for now.

"I don't get it, is this like an Atlas thing?" Yang stage whispered to Ruby, who shrugged helplessly.

"I think it's like, a Schnee thing maybe?" Ruby replied. Weiss scowled at the both of them.

"I know my sister, okay? She's happy to come see me," she said with an air of finality. Well, it wasn't like any three of them were about to argue.

"That's great, Weiss," Ruby said, nudging Weiss with her elbow. "You can show her all the hidden mysteries and magics of Vale, convert another Schnee into suburban living."

"Careful now, we don't want to corner the market. Soon Atlas' number one export is going to be rich, white-haired girls with icy exteriors," Yang grinned, leaning back into her chair.

"You've never even met my sister," Weiss protested. "How do you know if she has an icy exterior?"

"I think we've sussed it out somewhere between, and I quote, 'I will be visiting you' and 'ensure your living conditions are up to my standards'," Blake supplied. Yang held a hand out, that Blake high-fived without either of them looking as they stared at Weiss in smug satisfaction. Weiss rolled her eyes.

"You know, you both have gotten, like, twenty percent more annoying since you got together," Weiss crossed her arms.

"Did you hear that, Blakey? Only twenty percent, says the Ice Queen," Yang wrapped an arm around Blake shoulders. Blake shook her head ruefully.

"Those are rookie numbers, honey. We gotta pump those numbers up," Blake said. The pair of them had matching grins, and looked like they were about two seconds from a full make out session in the middle of the lunch room. Much as Ruby was happy for them, she really could do with less Blake and Yang making out. No place was sacred for them, apparently. She had caught them in the middle of unspeakable things in all manner of places, the most heinous of which was in the middle of the kitchen while she was baking. Absolutely disgraceful. She had half a mind to start wearing a bell when Blake was over. She had started taking to stomping around the house instead.

"Eugh," Weiss looked at Ruby, a grimace on her face as she motioned towards the other two with her chin. "We should invest in a spray bottle or something," she said.

"I mean, I think that's technically, like, a little racist," Ruby mused, pointing with her fork over to Blake. Weiss blushed. Blake and Yang still hadn't taken notice of either of them.

"Says Ruby 'two cans of tuna and a laser pointer' Rose!" Weiss said indignantly. Ruby speared some more lettuce in her mouth. She ate her vegetables like a grown up, alright.

"Point taken. I'll add 'spray bottle' to my grocery list," Ruby nodded.

"Oh, shut up you guys," Yang rolled her eyes at the two of them, now broken out of her reverie with Blake. "So, Weiss, are we going to get an introduction to the mysterious and enigmatic Winter Schnee?"

Weiss clammed up, quickly taking a bite of an apple slice and taking her time to really, really chew on it. Ruby flickered her gaze to Blake and Yang, who both shrugged, in a 'hey, guess not', kind of way, and wow actually, Blake picked up that shrug too? Ruby supposed it was only a matter of time. Weiss stuffed more food into her mouth, stopping herself from talking, because she absolutely refused to talk with her mouth full in any situation ever, no exceptions. It was one of the few Atlas habits Vale couldn't knock out of her.

"It's cool, Weiss you don't have to-" Ruby started.

"No! I want to!" Weiss protested. And, like, wow girl. Ruby raised both eyebrows. "I mean it," Weiss said, in a considerably calmer tone.

Yang, Blake and Ruby shared a look. Weiss shot all three of them a look.

"I'll just... let you guys know when, okay?" she said. They all nodded, moving onto other topics. In the corner of her eye, though, Ruby could see the frayed edges of Weiss' worry. She wondered, like she did, what it was going on up there.

Some people were described as 'unflappable'. But Ruby, she considered herself pretty flappable. So that's why she let out an awkward combination of a yelp and a scream when Jaune came out from a corner and dragged her by the arm into an empty classroom. Again.

Ruby shook him off, her heart still pounding. "God, Jaune, don't do that!"

Flappable. See?

"Sorry, Ruby, but we needed the utmost discretion here," he looked over his shoulder out a window, checking for anybody nearby, even though they were on the second floor. Ruby shook her head.

"You know you could, text me or something? What if I had something to do?"

Jaune eyed her. "Do you?"

Ruby crossed her arms and pouted. "No. But I could have!"

"I'm sorry, but let's focus up here, Rubes. Not everything's about you. God," Jaune put on his haughtiest face and rolled his eyes, full of humour though they were. Ruby couldn't help her own smile as she smacked him on the arm, but took a seat anyway on a table like the chaotic teen she was.

"So what's up this time? Everything alright with Pyrrha?"

"Everything is great with Pyrrha!" Jaune exclaimed, raising his hands up in the air.

"So what are we here to talk about?"

"Everything being great with Pyrrha," Jaune said again, tilting his head like it was obvious what he was talking about. Ruby narrowed her eyes.

"Yeah, no I got that but, like, what specifically are the words that you want to vomit out of your mouth and put into my brainpan?" Ruby outstretched both her hands, trying to prompt Jaune along. Somehow by and by, Ruby had turned into some semblance of a responsible adult, and the more she faced that fact, the less real it all seemed. Growing up was happening now, all slow and gradual and then all at once. That was just how life was.

"Right," Jaune said, clasping his hands together and bringing them against his mouth like in deep thought. "So everything's great. I just don't know what to do with that?"

"What?" Ruby blinked.

"What?" Jaune blinked.

"Your problem," she brought both her legs up on the table and crossed them. "Is that everything's going great and you don't know what to do?"

"Uh... yes."

Ruby pursed her lips and squinted even more at Jaune, doing her best impression of 'are-you-kidding-me' Weiss.

"Go ask her out on a date?" she said, like it was obvious, because it was. It was the most obvious thing in the world, and she was a little baffled that Jaune needed her help to figure this out. He wasn't the clueless moron everyone made him out to be sometimes.

"I... yeah! But, like... how do I do that?"

Scratch that. Maybe he was.

"If I were you I'd start with the words 'I'd like to' and end with the words 'go on a date with you, Pyrrha Nikos'," she smirked, easy and light. Jaune rolled his eyes.

"It's not as easy as that!" Jaune protested.

"I bet you it isn't as hard," Ruby countered.

"Point taken," Jaune deflated, leaning against the wall, his head thudding against it as he let out a laboured sigh. "But... it's difficult, you know? I don't know how she feels about me."

Ruby had to admit, there was a point to that. It wasn't easy to feel so strongly for someone, and to not know what was going on in their head. White hair and blue eyes flashed in her mind, and suddenly Jaune wasn't such a dummy. Ruby swallowed, dispelling all thoughts of pretty Atlas girls from her mind, and focusing on the issue at hand.

"Well, you must have some idea, Jaune. Come on, do your best Batman impersonation and tell me what you've figured out what she might think about you," Ruby said. Jaune lifted off the wall, crouching slightly and bringing his forearm up to obscure his face slightly.

"I am vengeance-"

"Without the actual Batman voice, please," Ruby stopped him, just on the edge of laughing. She shook her head as she smiled, and Jaune shrugged. He really was a dork and a half, sometimes. She didn't know all that much about Pyrrha, but it was hard to think that she wouldn't be in for that charm.

"Right, fine. I guess she likes me? As a person, and a friend, sure. But that's as far as I got. I've totally got no clue whether or not she likes me like... likes me, you know?" Jaune pursed his lips and crossed his arms, looking off into the distance. He shook his head and started pacing.

"You don't have any indication?"

"I don't. I don't want to take any small indications, you know?" he paused and whipped around to look at Ruby, gesticulating wildly with his hands. "Like, if she hugs me or something. That doesn't necessarily mean that she likes me, and I don't want to be presumptuous and pick up on some signals that aren't actually there. That's not okay," he pointed downwards for emphasis. Ruby had to admit, he did have another point there. Dammit, now her whole 'Jaune you're so dumb' thing was making her look real foolish.

"That's fair," Ruby said, biting the inside of her cheek.

"Thank you. So what should I do?"

Ruby closed her eyes. What would she do if she were in his situation?

If.

Ruby didn't want to go down this line of questioning. There were so many more things to think about before she got to this point. This here and now wasn't an okay thing, and Weiss wasn't her crush to think all this stuff about. Maybe. No. No. Ruby breathed in deep, willing those thoughts to go away, at least for a little while. She would deal with it later. Later.

In her heart of hearts, Ruby knew two things.

First was that she was wrong. And that would come back to haunt her.

Second was that, if all other obstacles were removed, if there was a straight line from Ruby Rose to Weiss Schnee, Ruby would have gathered up all her courage and dived into that water head first, if only for a fraction of a sliver of a chance.

"I guess... the only thing to do here, Jaune, is... take a leap of faith," Ruby told him. She opened her eyes and looked at him with no hesitation. He faltered.

"A leap of faith?"

"Ask her out, without knowing whether or not she likes you back," Ruby clarified, and her voice was steady, and her gaze was level.

"I..." Jaune stuck his hands deep in his pockets and pursed his lips.

"Yeah."

"Leap of faith, huh?"

"Yep."

"You sure there's not a shortcut, or some convoluted plot or scheme I could rope you into that'd give me an easier answer?" Jaune offered with a weak smile. Ruby threw her head back and laughed. A million schemes thought themselves up in her head. It was a fun thought, and she thought she wouldn't mind pretending to date Jaune to make Pyrrha jealous, or secretly manipulate her into going for Jaune in some other equally complicated plan. But she thought both Jaune and Pyrrha deserved a little better than that, romantic and amazing though that sounded.

"You're looking at the wrong gal if you're looking for an easy answer," Ruby said, shrugging. Jaune sighed, but there was a small, quiet small on his face.

"Sure am," he said, and he looked grateful for it.

"You got this," Ruby said, and she meant it. He did.

Merry Christmas!