AN: Author's note at the beginning today folks. This chapter ended up being much angstier than I had anticipated, but that's on me for assuming I could write a primarily fluffy fic. Apparently I can't! Oops! Instead of describing this as primarily fluff with a bit of angst, I'd describe it from here on out as half fluff, half angst. That being said, this acts as a bit of a warning for some darker themes this chapter, which have all been touched upon in previous chapters, but discussed much more in detail here. I'm bumping up the rating of this fic slightly, simply due to the darker turn that it's taken, but this chapter and the one after will be the peak of the angst in this story (hopefully). On that note, enjoy!

He's here.

Who?.

Uncle Qrow.

Ruby's words played over and over again in Yang's mind as she made the short trip between University Pizza and the apartment. She had been filled with overwhelming energy for the first time in two years. She didn't know if it was positive or negative energy, but it filled every cell of her being.

He's here.

Who?

Uncle Qrow.

The moment she parked in her spot, she leapt off her bike and sprinted into the building. She slammed the button outside the elevator repeatedly, as if somehow that would make it come faster. She needed to get there, and get there now.

He's here.

Who?

Uncle Qrow.

Yang slammed the button labeled with a six the moment she entered the elevator. She was sweating. She tore off her jacket, shoving it into her backpack as the doors closed and the elevator began to go up. It wasn't fast enough.

He's here.

Who?

Uncle Qrow.

She realized she had never even taken off her bike helmet.

He's here.

Who?

Uncle Qrow.

The elevator door opened as she pulled it off, holding it in her right hand. She broke off in a sprint again, running past numbers of apartments on both sides of her.

He's here.

Who?

Uncle Qrow.

610. 617. 622. 630.

He's here.

Who?

Uncle Qrow.

Yang skidded to a stop outside of apartment number 636.

He's here.

Who?

Uncle Qrow.

She could hear him.

He's here.

Who?

Uncle Qrow.

"Please, Ruby, just tell me. What's going on?"

"We have to wait for Yang," Ruby replied, her voice cutting clear through the door. She was on the verge of tears.

He's here.

Who?

Uncle Qrow.

Yang shoved her keys into the lock and turned.

"Please, Ruby, just tell me. What's going on?" Qrow begged, sitting on the futon in the living room, his head in his hands.

Ruby was pacing back and forth in front of the door. "We have to wait for Yang," she repeated, for the twentieth time in the last ten minutes. "We-"

The sound of keys in a lock.

Qrow stood up.

The door opened, and she entered.

"Yang," he said in a loud whisper, his eyes gravitating from her watering lilac eyes to her arm.

Her bright yellow robot arm.

"Yang," he repeated, his voice shaking as he took a step forward. "Wh-what happened to you?"

Yang threw herself forward, hugging her uncle tightly and locking her arms behind his neck. Tears flowed down her face, which she buried into his shoulder. He was stunned and still confused, but tried to return the hug as best he could. Ruby stared at them both, a deep sadness in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," Yang muttered between sobs as she clung close to him. "I'm so, so sorry."

Qrow sat on the futon, his head in his hands, trembling. "Can someone please tell me what happened? All of it, everything, please."

Yang had calmed down. She was sitting across from him in one of the chairs from the kitchen table that she had dragged over. Ruby handed her a glass of water, before pulling over the other chair to join her.

"It was two months after you left," Ruby said as she sat down. "A month before my 18th birthday."

"Dad and I…" Yang said slowly, placing her water down on the ground. "We got into a fight. It was stupid, so so stupid." She was trembling again.

Ruby placed her hand on Yang's knee, causing her to look at her younger sister. Ruby nodded, trying to stop her own eyes from watering as she attempted to channel her strength to Yang.

You can do this. It wasn't your fault.

"I cannot believe you!" Tai yelled, his hands gripping the wheel tightly.

"I don't understand why it's such a big deal! I wasn't drinking! I was just dancing and having fun! I wasn't hurting anyone!"

"You snuck into a bar with a fake ID," Tai hissed. "It's a huge deal!"

"All I wanted to do was dance!"

"And why should I believe that?"

"Because I was there for two hours before you showed up! If I wanted to drink, don't you think I would have tried before that?"

"And what would have happened if the bartender called the police instead of me?"

"I asked for a water! He had no reason to call anyone!"

"You're underage!"

"Are people under 21 banned from drinking water now?"

"You're grounded, for six months."

"You can't do that! I'm twenty years old!"

"If you live in my house, I don't care if you're six or sixty. I can ground you all I want."

Yang threw her hands up in the air. "I can't believe you."

"You're one to talk."

Yang didn't respond. She leaned her right arm against the inner part of the car door, resting her head in her hand.

Tai was grumbling to himself, the specific words he was muttering inaudible to Yang's ears. He looked up at the stoplight coming up again.

It was yellow.

He pushed down on the gas, speeding up towards the light as it turned red. His grip was so tight on the wheel, his knuckles were pure white.

BAM!

Yang took a deep breath before continuing again. "I had gotten busted for being in a bar underage. I wasn't drinking, but I wasn't supposed to be there. I was just there to dance, have fun… The bartender recognized me, and knew Dad, so he called him. He came and picked me up, and we fought the entire car ride."

"He was angry. He started speeding. He ran a red light..." Yang swallowed, trying to find her words.

"No," Qrow said, his eyes widening. "No, that can't be true. He.. he never… he never sped, not since Summer… Not since she…"

"But he did," Yang replied, her voice breaking as the tears came back again. "He did. And we got hit. Head on."

There were several beats of silence, Yang trying to wipe away her tears with her left hand before speaking again.

"I… I woke up in the hospital. My arm was gone and they told me he… He…"

The first thing Yang saw was pure white. It was bright, so bright.

There was the sound of steady beeping.

"Yang!" Ruby's voice broke through the beeping. "Yang!"

Yang blinked, focusing on the world around her.

"Where…" she gasped, her throat dry and raspy.

"You're in the hospital," Ruby said.

Yang turned her head towards the sound of the voice. Ruby was sitting on the left side of her bed, holding Yang's left hand tightly.

"What happened?" Yang whispered.

"You and Dad were in a car crash," Ruby replied softly.

"Where is he?"

Silence.

"Ruby." Her throat felt like it was on fire. "Where is Dad?"

There were tears in Ruby's eyes. "I'm sorry."

"No," Yang shook her head. "No, no, that's not possible."

"Let me call the doctors," Ruby said, standing up, trying to hold herself together. "They'll want to know you're awake."

Tears were streaming down Yang's face. She lifted up her right hand to wipe them away.

But it wasn't there.

Yang's eyes widened at the sight of the bandaged wrapped around what was left of her right bicep.

It was a stump.

"Ruby," Yang cried, "where's my arm?"

Ruby stuck her head out of the hospital room, waving someone down.

"Where's my arm? What happened to my arm?"

Yang was sobbing as the doctor and nurse rushed into the room. She was shaking uncontrollably, still staring at the stump.

The nurse released some medicine through her IV.

"Ruby… Ruby…" Yang muttered, looking around, panic in her eyes as they continued drooping.

"Ruby…"

"It was instant," Ruby said, causing both Yang and Qrow to look at her. "That's what the police told me. He died instantly. Yang hit her head on the dashboard, and her right arm got crushed, but she was otherwise unharmed."

"I got lucky," Yang added. "Really, really lucky. I should have died too."

"Don't say that," Qrow muttered, shaking his head slowly, avoiding eye contact.

Yang shook her head in return. "It's true. The doctors said it was a miracle I had survived, with no brain damage, and only a lost arm. I should be dead too, or braindead, at the least."

Qrow didn't respond. His head was in his hands again, unable to look up at his nieces. He just kept slowly shaking his head, over and over.

"Ruby was still 17." Yang reached over, grabbing her sister's hand. "They wanted to take her away from me. We fought, and fought, and fought, from my hospital bed, until they let her stay."

Ruby nodded. "Yang and I were able to convince them that taking me away for a month was going to do twenty times more harm than good. It took until practically my birthday to convince them it was the right thing to do. Once they were off our backs, we had to figure out how we were going to live now."

"We had enough money to last us a couple of months," Yang continued. "We got kicked out of the house. The day I got out of the hospital I signed the lease for this apartment."

"That bastard landlord kicked you out?" Qrow asked through gritted teeth.

"He waited until we had a new place and helped us sell or move the stuff we had," Ruby cut in, trying to calm her uncle down. "Dad was the one on the lease, and he knew we wouldn't be able to keep paying the rent. He did what he could for us, but there was only so much."

"We only had enough money to last us a few months in the new apartment without me working, but nowhere would hire me. I had to drop out of trade school. I had one arm, and I couldn't do any jobs that would take someone with no experience." Yang's eyes lowered to the ground. "I didn't know what to do."

"I was going to drop out of school and start working full time," Ruby said. "Yang kept telling me no over and over, she would find something. Money was running thin. We were at our lowest point. Then Penny reached out to me about a company she'd been working with at Atlas Academy. They were looking for people to test the prototype robot prosthetic they had been working on."

"Penny?" Yang asked, sitting down next to her sister in front of the laptop. "You wanted to talk to me?"

The orange-haired girl nodded on the other end of the call. "I have something that will help you!"

"What's that?"

"There's a company here in Atlas that my mechanical engineering professor works for. They specialize in robot prosthetics."

"I've heard about them. They're incredibly expensive though. I could never afford it."

"I know!" Penny exclaimed. "Which is why I talked to my professor!"

"You did what?" both Yang and Ruby asked at the same time.

"She told me they are looking for someone to beta-test the new model! They give their beta testers free models! I gave her your name, and she said she would pass it on to people on their beta team tomorrow!"

Yang blinked. "I can't afford to go all the way to Atlas…"

"They will come to you in Vale!"

"What are the chances she'll get picked?" Ruby asked.

"Pretty high. They have not been able to find any beta-testers for the new model of the arm, only the leg."

Yang sat and stared for a few more moments before a tear came to her eye.

"Penny… thank you."

"They came out to Vale and performed surgery to attached the metal cap," Yang explained, twisting off her arm with her left hand to show the metal cap that separated the flesh of her upper arm to the prosthetic. "They connected some of my nerves into the cap, which lets me use the arm. It took me another two months to completely recover and adapt to the arm. They paid our rent during that time, and gave us money for groceries and other needs. We were able to make the money we already had stretch a bit longer than it should have."

"I kept up my scholarships and picked up a job at school," Ruby explained. "It wasn't much, and it still isn't much, but it helped at the time. We got all of our furniture second hand, and as soon as Yang was cleared to work by the doctors, she had three jobs."

"Three?" Qrow asked, his jaw dropping open in shock.

Yang nodded. "I waitress at a diner full time, work part-time as a barista at a coffee shop, and drive delivery for a pizza place on the weekends. We needed all three to stay afloat. Well…" She looked down at the ground, trembling again as anger flooded through her at the memory of what had happened just an hour before at the pizza shop. "Two jobs, now."

Ruby looked at her sister. "What?"

"I got fired for leaving work to come here," Yang said quietly.

"What?" Qrow and Ruby asked together.

Yang wove her left hand in the air, which was still holding her detached right arm. "Forget about it. We'll deal with that later." She turned back towards Qrow. "That's the story."

"So it's been that way ever since?" Qrow asked.

Yang nodded as she attached her arm again. "Almost two years since I got the arm. Around Christmas time."

Qrow was silent for a few moments, putting his head back into his hands. "This all really happened… He's really gone…"

"I'm sorry Uncle Qrow," Yang said in a loud whisper. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," Ruby insisted, grabbing her sister's hand. "This wasn't your fault. We've been through this."

"I'm sorry," Qrow replied before Yang could say anything else. "I'm sorry I wasn't here. I should have been here. To help you two."

"You had an important job to do," Ruby replied. "You didn't know. You had no way of knowing."

"That doesn't mean I shouldn't have been here." Qrow shook his head. "Tai…" he whispered, closing his eyes as he dropped his head into his hands. "I'm so sorry."

Qrow was pacing, back and forth across the living room, not saying a word. Yang and Ruby still sat in their chairs, Ruby still clutching her sister's hand tightly.

"Right now, today, yesterday, tomorrow, how are you two doing?" he asked finally, stopping his pacing in front of them.

"Life's been worse," Yang said with a shrug, her voice falling flat. "I work next to nonstop. I haven't had a full day off from all of my jobs, other than Ruby's birthday, in months."

"School's going well," Ruby added. "I have another year and a half left, and then I graduate."

"I'm going to have to get another delivery job." Yang sighed, releasing her hand from Ruby's and putting her head into her hands. "I've tried to find a better place ever since I got the job. The owner is a creep and an asshole. Nowhere will give me as good of a setup though." A tear fell from her eye onto the ground. "I'm so tired."

"Don't worry about getting another job," Qrow replied sharply.

Yang shook her head as she sat back up straight. "That's not an option."

"Yes, it is. I'm here now. You two aren't on your own anymore."

Yang blinked, words failing her.

The idea of Qrow coming back and helping them… it had never occurred to her. Not once, in the last two years, had the vision of the way out of this hell been with Qrow. It had always been with Ruby finishing school and getting a decent job. They'd never talked about Qrow as an option. He'd been an unpredictable force all their lives, with his job whisking him away on top secret missions at a moment's notice. Why would she have thought of him, the human embodiment of instability, during the most unstable part of their lives?

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked. "You're going to get shipped off on another mission soon, I bet."

Qrow shook his head. "I'll go into the office and give them my resignation tomorrow. I'll find something nearby and get us a better place to stay. I've got more than enough to keep us afloat in the meantime. Don't worry about a third job."

Yang shook her head. "You don't have to throw away your career for us. Don't do that to yourself."

"I'm not throwing anything away," Qrow snapped back. "I never should have left in the first place. I should have been here. You should have been able to contact me."

"That's not your fault," Yang repeated.

"That doesn't matter!" Qrow collapsed onto the futon. "Don't you get it? I'm your uncle. I helped raise you two. I promised both Summer and Tai I'd always be there for you two… and I failed."

"You didn't fail-"

"Yes I did!" Qrow was shaking now, anger rising in his voice. "I… I'm not going to keep failing." His voice cracked, each word struggling to get out of his mouth. "I'm going to do what I can… to make it right…"

"There's nothing to make right," Yang insisted. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"Please," Qrow said, tears streaming down his face. "Please, just let me do this. Let me help you. I don't know what else to do. My best friend has been dead for two years and I didn't even know. You lost your arm and the two of you have been living in poverty and barely getting by, and I didn't even know. I don't know what else to do. Please."

Yang stood up from her chair, her eyes closed as she breathed in deeply. "I need to clear my head," she said as she opened her eyes. "I'll be back."

"Yang-" Qrow tried to start again, but Ruby shook her head at him. He sank back into his seat without another word.

Yang ignored the comment regardless, picking up her helmet and backpack from the ground as she walked out the door, slamming it shut behind her.

"Let her take the time she needs," Ruby said, letting out a long sigh. "Today has been a lot."

"You're telling me," Qrow sighed, putting his head in his hands again.

Yang already found herself sitting on her bike again, her scroll in her hand. There was only one person she wanted to see right now.

New Message to: Blake Belladonna

What are you doing right now?

A reply popped up on the screen immediately.

Nothing, I'm just at home with the cats. Why?

Can I come over? I need to get out of here.

Yes, of course.

Yang slid her scroll back into her pocket, sliding her helmet over her head, and starting up her motorcycle.

This time, a different name was repeating in her mind.

Blake Belladonna.

AN: If you'd like updates on this work, as well as others, you can follow me on tumblr at SuperbBirbFics , or my main for spicy rwby memes and other various content at PancakesWithKetchup . And, if you'd like to help support me and my writing more, you can buy me a ko-fi ! My username there, as with most places (except for tumblr, because the url is taken rip) is SuperbBirb ! Thank you all so much for your continued support in my works, I endlessly appreciate it and love you all!