The stone ledge she sat on stole heat from her body even through the thick material of her pants. She tucked the tails of her jacket securely underneath her; a preventative barrier to keep the needed warmth near. Crickets chirped into the crisp night air keeping her company. In Menagerie, Blake associated the sound with the little critters enjoying the night as much as she, but here in Atlas she thought they must chirp to keep warm rather than from happiness.
The lights of Mantle below flickered. Twinkling stars both above and below her. One set of constellations familiar and comforting, the other a cruel mockery of the distance between the faunus and human species. How easily she could have been one of them down below. In another life her childhood may have been spent looking up at the oppressive landmass she now sat upon instead of looking up at the clear stars above Kuo Kuana. How different her life might have been raised in humanities literal shadow rather than reaching for the glowing stars high above.
"Hey, what are you doing out here all alone?"
Yang's voice drifted through the darkness carried by the comforting freshness of the night air. Even as she breathed deep, savouring the air filling her lungs, she had to wrap her new coat securely around her slender shoulders. She still had to get used to the colder climate of Atlas. She loved the night, the shadows she could slip into, the advantages it gave her sight and the way everything had a glow about it as her night vision kicked in. It was like everything had an aura she could see emmenating from their core, trying to escape the physical barriers that held it within. She sat amazed at the light of every blade of grass, every tree, and the almost blinding glow that came into view as Yang took a seat beside her on the wall's ledge.
"Getting some space from everyone." Blake sighed heavily still able to hear the cacophony of voices coming from the barracks.
"Oh, am I interrupting?"
Yang brought her feet underneath her ready to make an exit, but Blake's hand shot out on reflex to close around the cold metal of Yang's.
"I wasn't escaping from you," she said quietly. Blake smiled, locking eyes with her welcomed interloper. "You are always welcome to join my solitude."
"Is it really solitude if you aren't alone?" She asked, making herself comfortable once more. This time she sat closer as Blake pulled at Yang's arm, leaning against her warm shoulder once she stilled. "This would be more like duo-tude wouldn't it?"
Blake scoffed shaking her head in feigned disapproval, feeling Yang's soft jacket against her cheek. Yang laughed quietly at her own joke as silence enveloped them.
As much as Blake enjoyed the night; she enjoyed it so much more with the strength of Yang's presence surrounding her. Yang chased away the cold and warmed her, heart and soul.
"I missed you."
They slipped from Blake's lips before she could swallow them. Those words though potent and honest still had no right to come from her. She was the one to leave. She had no right saying how much she missed her because that was the point, wasn't it? It was a way in which she punished herself because she'd caused pain to the ones she loved, to the one she loved the most. What better way to punish herself than to live without that half of herself she needed to feel joy? The distance that had once separated them had been her choice, not Yang's. Blake could allow herself time to think about the loneliness she'd felt all those months without her, to appreciate what she now had, but she had no right to voice them to Yang who had lived through worse with no say in any of it.
"I should hope so." Yang joked.
"Please don't do that."
"Do what?" Yang's voice was soft, inquisitive but held an air of knowing.
"Brushing it off with one of your jokes." Blake sighed. She sat up, lifting her head from its comforting perch on Yang's shoulder. She tried to pull her arm back knowing it was another way of punishing herself for her words. She would not run. Never again would she leave Yang's side, but did she truly deserve the pleasure of Yang's embrace?
"I thought we put that all behind us?" Yang asked gripping Blake's hand in both of hers. It wasn't a forceful grip, nothing Blake couldn't break with a flick of her wrist, but it was enough to tell her that Yang didn't want her to pull away.
Yang wanted to keep her close.
"Yeah, but-"
"Do you want to talk more about it? About then?"
Blake could feel the way Yang studied her, just as she could feel the warm brush of a roughened thumb glide along the cold skin of the back of her hand. Blake glared at the pointed toe of her right boot to keep her eyes from wandering lest they give her away. There were so many things to be said, so many days, hours and minutes to fill each other in on. She wanted to share every step she'd taken, every conversation she'd had, every emotion she'd felt during Yang's absence. She wanted Yang to know her story, both physical and emotional. She wanted to share it all with her just as she wanted to know every detail of Yang's journey without her, but she was scared. The one thing that gave her comfort during their separation was that she kept repeating Yang would be better off without her. She knew now that she'd been wrong but she didn't know if she was strong enough to process just how much her actions had hurt Yang.
"I missed you too."
Yang's words echoed in the night air, finally returning Blake's attention, and eyes, to her. Yang was smiling and a warm pulse rippled through the air as the glow around Yang intensified briefly.
"I'm so sorry." Blake's jaw hung as she willed the words to come. She needed to tell Yang how empty she had felt without her. How hard it had been to be away from her, wondering if she thought of her as Blake thought of Yang every day. How she hoped Yang hated her but also how she loathed the thought of being thought ill of by her. She wanted to tell Yang how every day tore her apart with the weight of her own decision. But most of all she wanted to tell Yang that she'd found something returning home that had been missing for a very long time; a piece of her that she hadn't even known she'd lost. Blake wanted to find the words to tell Yang that this piece of her was the part that was able to make the promise to never leave again and it was the reason she knew she would never go back on those words, that she would never run again.
Silence persisted even as her lips moved trying to bring her jumbled thoughts together into something coherent. When looking into Yang's eyes afforded her nothing but more emotions and confusing thoughts she ripped them away to gaze at the stars high above.
"They're so bright in Atlas."
Blake hummed in acknowledgement. Amber eyes easily found half a dozen known constellations without searching; so familiar with the night sky as she was it was almost second nature.
"Then," Blake emphasized clearly. "Even with Sun following me, even being with my parents and later when Ilia joined us, I still felt-" Blake paused, struggled to find the words she wasn't sure existed to describe the feelings she'd felt. "Lonely doesn't quite fit. It felt like there was this piece of me missing." Blake could recall the feeling, but try as she might she could not force herself to feel it again, not with Yang so close chasing the desolation away. "Something just wasn't right. I wasn't whole without you, and I would just look up at all these shining beacons of light and know if you were to look up, wherever you were, you'd be seeing the same sky as me." Yang's eyes followed hers. "That thought helped me get through most of the loneliness because even if you were miles," Blake paused, breathing deep as she remembered the distance that once kept them apart. "or continents away, that small, almost insignificant fact made it feel like you were right there beside me."
Yang tightened her hold around Blake's fingers, pulled her closer, and wrapped one arm securely around her waist until Blake took up her previous position resting her cheek against Yang's shoulder.
"I would think of you sometimes not knowing where you were." Yang started, thumb rubbing comforting circles on the back of her wrist once more. "I would wonder if you were okay or even if you were even alive." Blake cringed, feeling the sharp pain of her betrayal. She had at least known Yang was safe when she left. "It's kind of funny," Yang chuckled lowly, "That I would always find myself wandering after dark. The night always reminded me of you, and the stars and moon had a calming effect on me for whatever reason. I never understood why, but maybe…" Yang pulled back and Blake lifted her eyes in question. "Maybe it was because you were looking up thinking of me too."
Yang's radiant smile pulled a grin from Blake even as she tried to hide it.
"I don't like thinking of our time apart as anything positive." Blake sighed, grin disappearing from her lips. "Remembering those times and smiling seems like a betrayal."
"It certainly wasn't fun," her own smile waning a fraction, "but it was maybe necessary and I think it did us both some good."
The words shocked Blake into sitting up and pulling away from Yang again. These were words she never would have imagined hearing coming from her partner's lips. They hadn't spoken about their separation much but the little snippets of information she had garnered from her teammates only gave her the impression Yang had been bitter, hurt, and angered by Blake's disappearance. Blake never blamed her, knowing that her team's, and Yang's, hatred was a likely outcome of her running away. She'd even told Sun she hoped that was their reaction, but to hear Yang voice that it might have been good for them startled her.
As Blake let the words sink she allowed herself to study Yang's familiar features. She sat unmoving, planted securely beside her. Her slow, sure breaths confirmed what Blake should have known all along. Yang had always been strong. Strength, that's who and what she was, but that didn't mean she was invincible. Yang could be hurt, she could be damaged. Her mother had done it once in leaving her, and Blake had done it again not long after Yang began trusting her with her secrets; with her heart. By all accounts Yang should hate her for what she did, and yet…
"You came back."
Was that the difference? Was that why Yang could forgive her for leaving but could not forgive her mother?
"I shouldn't have run."
"We will never know where that path might have led us."
Yang took a deep breath, eyelids fluttering closed for a few blissful moments and Blake could almost imagine her fast asleep. Her features were so relaxed, something she rarely observed. Yang was a protective jokester, features lifted in a brilliant smile, or face scrunched in concentration or worry over her sister and friends. Rarely was she relaxed enough to be seen like this, and Blake savoured the moment. All too soon it ended and Yang's eyes found hers and her lips lifted in a smile once again.
"Even before the fall of Beacon I would catch myself staring at you across a crowded room. I would imagine what it would be like to have you remain that stranger you were on the first day of school. I would imagine not having you by my side everyday. I would try to think of how I would feel looking at you as someone that didn't mean the absolute world to me."
"Yang-"
"Blake," she interrupted. "Well before you ran I tried to picture how I would cope without you." Her eyes shifted back to the stars, remembering a perspective of the past that Blake was in the dark about. As Yang's eyes searched the heavens for her next words, Blake's searched Yang. "You were always meant to leave in my mind. I'd never planned for you to stay. No matter how hard I want to keep everyone close, somehow I end up alone. I didn't see you as being any different."
Tears welled up in Blake's eyes and her breath hitched. Yang noticed. Her eyes drifting from the stars to return to her. Both her hands lifted to cup each of Blake's cheeks, wiping the salty streams from her skin.
"How can you f-forgive me for making you feel l-l-like that?" Blake stuttered through her ragged breathing.
"Because you came back."
The longer Blake stared at Yang's soft comforting smile the more she calmed until the tears finally dried and her breathing evened out.
"There that's better." Exhausted Blake leaned in for needed support and always a pillar of strength Yang was there, arms wrapping around her. "I think, I would have continued imagining how I would live in a world absent of you, had you not run proving me right." Silence pervaded as they both took in Yang's words.
"Proving you right was a good thing in your mind? Because it doesn't feel like it should be."
Yang hummed, taking a moment to form her words. "I was finally able to stop wondering when it would happen, because it had. I still felt your absence keenly. I would see you in every dream, in every shadow, and in every memory. You were still there, but also not. Not having to worry when the day would come freed me from the fear of it. I was alone and you know what?"
"What?" Blake asked when it didn't seem like the answer was forthcoming.
"I survived. I worked on myself. For the first time in my life I wasn't fighting for anyone other than me, and I think I needed that. Just like you needed to find whatever you did without me."
"How di-?"
Yang chuckled, the movement transferring to Blake's body through hers. A smile was once again pulled from Blake and she wondered how Yang could have such a strong effect on her.
"I know because you are different." Blake didn't even try to deny it. "The same but also different. You're more sure of yourself and I think whatever it is you found is why I believe you now."
"I told you I was done running before."
"And I didn't believe it. I never even tried."
"And now?"
"Now? Now I know you might have to leave for one reason or another, but that you will always come back. That's what your promise means, right?"
"Honestly, I can't even picture being away from you for a single day more than we already have been, but I know that's a stupid fantasy. We will have to separate sometimes-"
"Or else my puns will give you an aneurism."
Blake laughed. "Precisely that." She sombered, squeezing Yang's hand still firmly wrapped around hers. "But we will always find eachother again; that's what I'm promising you. Now and forever."
"Neither of us will ever have to be truly alone ever again. If it took a few months apart for us to both find the strength to fulfill a promise of forever together, I see that as a worthy sacrifice."
"I love you, Yang." Blake whispered, closing her eyes and leaning further into Yang's warmth.
"I love you too, now and forever."
"Now and forever."