UNAIRED EP: Later and After
They had won.
At the end of the day, they had somehow won. They had won and now they were long far gone from the danger or at least from that crisis. Although maybe calling it a win isn't exactly right.
They hadn't lost.
They had fought and fought hard they did, and they hadn't lost. They didn't lose to anyone and they didn't lose anyone. And at the end of the day, that's all that matters.
It's been a long journey with most of it spent feeling lost if not being lost but somehow they were still making their way.
They had to fight the Grimm that were after the relic, they had to fight the people who wouldn't hear them out, they had to fight amongst themselves over their exposed to be unreachable goal, and they had to fight with their own doubts. They had to fight so much. But after all that fighting, they came out stronger.
They came out stronger and together.
And maybe that's what made them so strong to withstand all those hardships. Had they been alone then they might have folded. But they weren't alone. They had each other. And there's a certain strength that one can only achieve in the support of others.
A person can be strong but a person connected to another person can be the strongest.
That's what defeated the Leviathan. It wasn't just the silver eyes although that did play a part. It was the desire to preserve life that powered the ability. It was the will of her and others combined. It was the people who brought her to this point.
To protect the world, you don't think about the world. You think about the people you want to protect. You start with love.
How cool was that? You get to laser beam monsters with your eyeballs through the power of love?
Ruby thinks it's the coolest thing since Crescent Rose.
But she knows she has to be careful too. Love can hurt you even if it wasn't that person's intention. Sometimes bad things just happen and every time, it hurts when bad things happen to good people.
That's why she signed up to be a huntress. That's what she's fighting for. She doesn't just fight to defeat evil, she fights to protect the good. She wants to prevent bad things from happening. She has to stop them because she can and because she has to try. She has to—
"Stop thinking so loud."
The command comes out of nowhere except not really. Ruby hears the disgruntlement from beside her. She turns her head and meets the awaiting gaze of her partner.
That's right. She almost forgot about Weiss. Ever since Weiss helped her stand up and move towards sitting securely with the other pair of the team, neither of them had let go of each other. Their arms had moved from shoulders and settled on waists, lightly draped behind in lingering touches.
They had been holding each other up before but now they were just side by side.
And Ruby had been so caught up with how natural it just felt— to have Weiss by her side as if there's no other place she'd rather be— that she had forgotten to be conscious of her presence. After all, her partner had this uncanny ability to read her sometimes.
"Stop listening on my thoughts."
She sticks out her tongue because a raspberry this close is gross and her partner is already grumpy as is. Weiss on the other hand, rolls her eyes at the childish antics.
This too feels so natural that they unknowingly fall back into routine.
"Stop being so difficult."
"Stop being so rude."
"Stop doing that."
"Stop doing what?"
"Ugh, you two. Stop. Stop being so cute."
They both turn their heads to the unexpected third party courtesy of Yang.
"And who asked for your opinion?" Weiss narrows her eyes at the nosy blonde.
"No one asked you to be prickly and yet here we are," Blake smoothly comments which earns her a proud high five from Yang.
It also earns her a patented glare from the Ice Queen making a comeback.
"I don't have to take this." Weiss in her fit of defiance, almost crosses her arms. Almost. But to cross her arms would mean that she has to pull back her arm out from behind Ruby.
She doesn't.
"Yeah, we don't have to take this!" Ruby unnecessarily sidles up next to Weiss even though they're already close enough as it is. "Go bother someone else! We were having a moment!"
"A moment?" Weiss scrunches her face in confusion and Ruby tries hard not to let Weiss overhear her internal squealing over how cute she looked. Even when that confused look now turned deadpan, Weiss somehow made it look cute still. "We were arguing."
"Yeah! And that's our thing!" Ruby proudly declares it as if it's their greatest achievement in so far.
"Our... thing?" Weiss lets the word roll off her tongue as if she had accidentally drank Ruby's blasphemously sweet coffee. It takes her by surprise and by the throat. "H-How... why?"
Yang surreptitiously mutters in between a sudden coughing fit, "LQ."
It doesn't go past Blake's sharp hearing, her ears twitch along with her chuckles.
Weiss on the other hand, is not as amused. "I beg your pardon?"
"I said you have low IQ!" Yang guffaws. And before Weiss could have a meltdown, Yang raises her free hand as a show of surrender. "Alright, I'll back off. I'm good. I'll leave you two to your thing or whatever. Don't mind me."
It would have been nice if Yang had left it at that. However, this was not a perfect world.
"Just don't do anything I wouldn't do~" She even punctuates it with a playful wink.
Especially because of the coloring of her cheeks, Weiss would have none of that. "Just what are you insinuating?"
"Oh chill out, Ice Queen. That wasn't for you. That was just advice from me to Rubes." Yang tilts her head only slightly so just to give Ruby her full attention as she clarifies, "It's Weissicle. I wouldn't do Weissicle so write that down."
"But... Huh?" Ruby blinks. How is that even advice? Now she's just confused. "But you said that I shouldn't do anything you wouldn't do and you wouldn't do Weiss so that means—"
"It means we are not having this conversation!" Weiss cries, her voice pitching higher in the middle. In her panic to pull Ruby away from that train of thought, she had literally pulled her away from the devious blonde.
Coincidentally, the action only pulls Ruby closer to Weiss, practically hugging her much more intimately than she was willing to admit comfortable.
Nora hollers despite being just a few feet away, "She means that you should definitely do—"
"Do talking! Do er... Do continue talking! With Weiss! Yes, that's definitely what she means by that!" Jaune interjects just in time.
Just from that act alone, Weiss would have forgiven Jaune for every wrong thing he had done ever.
"Just keep doing what you do with Weiss," Ren reinforces with that sagely wisdom that may or may not come from being with Nora for so long.
"Oh... Okay?" Ruby still looks at everyone else, skeptical. "But why did you have to word it out so weirdly?"
Yang would have hit the last nail on the coffin but Blake squeezes their still entwined hands and smoothly says, "Oh, you know Yang."
There's a pregnant pause. And although she's obviously talking to Ruby, Blake only has her eyes on Yang for the delivery.
"She likes to make things hard to... Yangderstand."
...
And the greatest plot twist of the day officially goes to Blake.
The only people who weren't cringing were the ones too surprised to even process what just happened. That and... was Yang moved to tears?
"...Great." Weiss groans. She's unfortunately the first to recover. "What happened with you two must have been worse than what you told us if you're telling puns now. What's next? Yang living in a library?"
"What's wrong with a library?" Oscar asks and completely misses the whole point of the barb.
"Ha! You should be asking what's funny about a library." Maria guffaws from the pilot seat.
For an old woman who proclaims to be hard of hearing, she sure could hear fine from that distance when it comes to gossip and the like. She's definitely not hard of yapping.
"At least books have spines which is more than what half of the people on Remnant have. Actually make that two-thirds or just in general."
"Not you too." Weiss grouses. "Don't you dare enable them."
"Loosen up, mini-Ice Queen. Your fuse can't be as short as you are." Qrow must be feeling better now to join in with a jibe albeit it was at her expense.
"I am not short!" She protests with no small amount of effort nor wounded pride. If she had been standing, she would have let her heels do the reprimanding. "And will you stop calling me—"
Shaking. Weiss was interrupted by shaking. For a moment, she thought that they had encountered turbulence. But it wasn't the plane shaking. No, the shaking was more localized, in particular, it was coming from the person she still hadn't let go of.
Ruby was laughing.
She wasn't just snickering or even trying to hide it. Ruby was genuinely laughing. It was such a carefree laugh too. It didn't sound like it came from a person who had just defied death so many times in one day. It sounded more like the day had only just begun and waking up on the wrong side of the bed was not annoying but rather hilarious.
"Don't tell me that you find this funny?" Weiss questions her partner's sense of humor with just the slightest frustration and implicitly she questions everything else with confusion.
"Funny? Pfft! Sure, why not?" Ruby lets out a few giggles and the sound of it is awe inspiring. And when she settles with a smile, it is mesmerizing. "But I was just thinking how nice it is."
Weiss actually pauses. It's just a casual conversation, another common string of words, a simple turn of phrase. And yet there's something different about it that she can't quite place.
Maybe it's in the way her voice softens after a good laugh. Maybe it's the serene look on her face like how the moon still rises even after having been broken. Maybe it's that shine in her eyes that have less to do with them being silver and more to do with the simple soul behind silver windows.
Whatever it is, it has Weiss captivated.
"Nice?" She repeats the word but it doesn't come out quite the same as when her partner had said it.
"Yeah, nice." There it is again. The word bounces happily from Ruby's lips and rings pleasant in their ears like bells. She lets out a content breath. "This. Us." Her smile ever glowing, she gestures to everyone on the plane.
Everyone's still here— together.
"It's nice."
Ruby hums a tune that Weiss doesn't recognize but can relate to all the same. She doesn't need to see Ruby's fingertips in order to feel them tap freely on her hip. Tapping, a gentle reminder that she's here, she's here for her, she's here with her.
It's such a simple gesture and yet it's simple moments like these that are missed the most.
She thinks she finally understands.
"Yeah, it is nice."
And this time when Weiss says it, it sounds similar to what Ruby had meant.
Silence fills in the gaps. It's the kind of quiet that simply follows. A tranquil kind of quiet that drifts in after all the noise, the respite. No one talks for a while, no one has to. The silence doesn't give in to tension, rather it only brings out the peacefulness of just simply being in the company of others.
In the quiet, it's easier to hear one's thoughts.
"You remembered." Ruby starts and there's a long pause before she realizes that she had said that out loud. Upon Weiss curious gaze, the words just start flowing out, "You still remember how I take my coffee."
Weiss lets that memory linger in between them. She doesn't know where this line of conversation came from but she hopes to find out where it will lead to.
"How could I forget?" She pauses and a sideway glance reveals her partner listen with rapt attention. Her own lips upturn by the corners. "It's a blasphemous amount of sugar."
"I still remember it too..." Ruby speaks of it with such particular fondness. Like how warm a cup of coffee feels in one's hands and how warmer it is when it's been freely given to you.
They're not talking about just the coffee anymore.
"Good because I don't plan on forgetting it."
Their gazes lock. In their eyes they see the same memory, the same promise, the same feelings. Their eyes spoke more than their lips did.
"And you shouldn't forget it too." Weiss barely catches herself smile before she turns it into a smirk. "The coffee."
Ruby on the other hand doesn't hold back her brilliant grin. "But I never ask for coffee."
"You don't have to and you're welcome." Weiss notes with just a smidgen of smug pride,
"You don't have to tell me what to do, I already know. I'll fix you up a cup of coffee every time I see fit that you need it. And you will get the coffee that you deserve each time. Without fail."
Since when did coffee sound so serious? But Ruby already knows the answer to that. Since it's Weiss. And since this is Weiss, Ruby knows the true weight behind those words and it settles around her like a blanket— or an arm around her waist. A great comfort.
"Thanks, Weiss." Ruby's voice comes out like a whisper, reverent. "For the coffee. And..."
"And?" Weiss almost blinks at the intensity fueling Ruby's silver eyes.
"And I love you too."
The sudden forwardness puts Weiss off balance. They were just talking about coffee or they were just talking about not just coffee but this? This wasn't supposed to be spoken, at least not out loud. Isn't that why they've been talking about coffee like it's not just coffee all this time?
But then Weiss remembers that this is Ruby and Ruby always gets into the heart of matters. Always. And for Weiss who has prided herself with her plethora of words, she suddenly finds none.
No word or turn of phrase could ever epitomize this moment, this feeling, this promise.
So she doesn't reply— at least not in words.
Instead she's the one who initiates the action, the movement, the contact. Her other arm reaches over to meet where her first one rests, the half embrace has now come full circle. She may be holding tighter than she would be dared caught in but in this moment nothing else mattered.
It was in that silence that Ruby heard her answer.
And although Ruby is usually the one who initiates the contact, she doesn't mind being the one who reciprocates from time to time.
"You still nervous about going back home?" She asks after she settles deeper in the embrace, basking in affection and returning it tenfold.
Maybe if Weiss was asked that same question on some different day ago or to a different Weiss some time ago, she would have answered differently. But the Weiss that is today in this moment already has her answer set in her heart.
"You say that as if I'm not already home."
Weiss knows this, but Ruby? Ruby is taken by surprise. It's not that she doesn't know this to be true, it's just that hearing the words and seeing Weiss' lips move, and then connecting the two is such a foreign concept that she thinks she might have imagined it out of fatigue.
But the rosiness of Weiss' cheeks is too real.
"Pfft! That's so cheesy!" Ruby couldn't stop herself from giggling even if she wanted to.
Weiss huffs and pinches Ruby by the hip in retaliation. "I take it back."
"Nooo! No takebacks!" She whines and clings onto her now annoyed partner. "Weiss we love you too!"
When Grumpy Weiss only huffs again, Ruby tries to use more words to bring back Nice Weiss.
"I think that's pretty amazing! You get to take your home with you wherever you go!"
"Wherever I go?"
"Yeah! Because we're not going anywhere without you!"
Ruby's smile doesn't falter one bit, it never does when she's genuinely happy. Happiness can be so infectious sometimes. And sometimes, happiness is best felt when shared.
"I'm home. I'm finally home."
A home doesn't have to be a house or an isolated mansion. Sometimes a home can just be a beat up plane filled with seven beat up kids, a bird uncle and a sassy grandma.
Simply put, a home is wherever you are as long as your family, the people who genuinely love you, is with you.
"Welcome home."
A/N: MY GARDEN OF WHITE ROSES HAS BEEN WATERED!
Volume 6 is definitely my favorite volume so far! Maybe ever! And this fic has been so much fun to write! But what really made me happy was getting to hear from you and even talk to some of you! Thanks for coming with me on this journey of a fic and sticking through till the end!
Special shoutout to the regular reviewers! LogicalFallacies, iamking, Star-The-Writer, Cun, spookiestboi, KHARAKI TAKAN, RWBY phase, Raion Shinz, Villains84, Spyro. I WOULD DIE FOR YOU (or write more whiterose) so hit up my inbox or summon me with a transmutation circle I guess.
Will I do another whiterose series fic like this for volume 7? I can't promise you that just yet. It depends if the next one (hopefully Weiss arc) is just as good (I really hope they do her story arc justice too) then maybe.
Let's hope for the best then! And expect the worst! Because Jackass Schnee is out to get Weiss and Salem is out to get Ruby (and Neo and Cinder too but I'm more worried about the winged monkeys reference to wizard of oz). In other words, AAAAAAAAAA
If anyone ever mistakenly remembers anything from this fic as canon then I know this will be my greatest accomplishment in my shipping life. In my heart they are canon. Heartcanon.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I may or may not write more but until then, thank me later!