Weiss glared at the huge plate piled with macaroni and cheese, then at Yang.

"Half," she bargained, crossing her arms over the blankets.

Yang glared right back, kneeling down to push the plate right into the stubborn heiress's arms. "Oh no. You skipped out on dinner. You are eating this entire thing or so help me I will feed it to you."

"I didn't skip dinner on purpose- I collapsed from exhaustion after those demented miners shot at me," Weiss refused to take the plate, crossing her arms harder and lifting her chin in the pale light that filtered in through the window. "Plus my metabolism is far more efficient than yours. I should only have to eat a quarter of that."

Yang visibly flinched at the mention of their narrow escape, but quickly recovered, raising both eyebrows in incredulity. "You should be eating twice this much, I'm going easy on you!" Yang brandished the fork in her hand, sweeping it wide to indicate just how much food she had originally dumped on the plate before Ruby and Blake had intervened.

"You're going to make me throw up," Weiss countered haughtily from her seat propped against the arm of the couch, "I'm lactose intolerant."

"Lies and deceit!" Yang would have thrown her arms in the air were she not holding a steaming hot plate of food that would rain down over the both of them. Actually, that was a fairly tempting idea. "I've seen you eat ice cream! And yogurt!"

"I'm intolerant of absurdly large doses of lactose, as well as any other sort of food you may try to force upon me," she pointed to the plate, offering again, "Half."

Yang's face twisted in pained fury. "Do you just not want to get better? Is that it? You just want to stay sleepy and grumpy and-" her expression suddenly lost all trace of anger, turning from honest confusion, to suspicion, to mild surprise. "Is that it? You just want... more sleep?" Yang leaned forward, eyes wide, "More cuddles with me?" She put the hand holding the fork over her heart and turned her head to the side, looking bashful. "Oh Weiss, you could have just asked~"

"What?! No." Weiss brought both hands up to ward Yang off as she spoke over her shoulder, "Honestly. Blake, come make your partner behave!"

"Weiss! I never would have guessed - you want cuddles from Blake too? Oh, you are insatiable."

"Do I even want to know what you two are talking about?" The Faunus in question emerged from the kitchen, ears perked and eyes bright.

"Oh, Weiss was just expressing her secret desires to be cuddled by both of us at once."

Blake came to lean against the back of the couch, one dark eyebrow arched in amusement. "Oh? Weiss. I never knew. All you had to do was ask."

"Stay away from me," Weiss balled her fists, bristling, "I'm still only eating half of it, Yang."

A flurry of rose petals scattered over the couch as Ruby appeared, her crimson cloak swirling at her heels.

"Alright guys," Ruby crouched down and spread out a cut up cardboard box on the floorboards next to the couch, determination in her silver eyes as she announced to her teammates. "I've got a plan."

Yang lit up at the word 'plan'. "Yes, please, something productive," she handed the plate of macaroni over Weiss's head to Blake, tossing her the fork shortly thereafter. "Blake, she won't listen to me. You deal with her."

Blake blinked, shrugged, and offered the plate to the scowling heiress. "Take your time, eat as much as you can." Once Yang had focused her attention on Ruby, the Faunus leaned close to Weiss, dropping her voice to a whisper, "Just remember, the more you eat, the faster you'll recover, and the less you'll have to deal with Yang's coddling."

Weiss rolled her eyes, "Fine. Just give me the fork."

"Okay, So our main problem is the Grimm," Ruby indicated a crude sketch of James Point, flanked by mountains and an angry cartoon bat, "Gale may have blasted a whole bunch of the Liliac, but it sounds like there's more and we don't know when they'll come," she glanced at Blake, "Though actually with everyone hurt and scared in town we might attract other types of Grimm. Which would be bad. So we really, really need to look after the town, and we really, really need help.

"This brings us to plan number one: try the radio," she jabbed the picture of an old-time ham radio with the tip of her pen, "We should do that if no one in town's already tried it," Ruby looked between Yang, who was seated cross-legged on the rug, and Weiss, who poked at her macaroni, listening intently, "Uh... have they?"

The heiress raised her fork, "I was seventy-five percent unconscious for the past... however long it's been since the attack. We were very snowed in at the clinic, though."

Yang nodded, "The farthest we got was tunneling over to the neighbor's house when supplies ran low."

"There were one or two miners around town hall searching for survivors," Blake added, coming around the side of the couch to sit on its arm, "But once they found Gale they... left pretty quickly. I'm not sure whether anyone went back to try the radio before the storm kicked in."

Ruby set her jaw for a second. It would be so much easier if they could use their scrolls, or if they could at least talk to whoever was currently in charge. Was there anyone in charge? So many townsfolk had died. A lump formed in her throat and she tried not to think about the numbers.

"So either we sneak up there and see if we can get it to work," Ruby said, rolling the pen between her fingers and thumb as she gauged her teammates reactions, "...or we try to talk with the miners and whoever else is keeping watch for the town."

"The radio," came Blake's immediate answer.

Yang took a few seconds longer to reply, subconsciously leaning back against the couch, closer to Weiss. "I'm not sure..." She glanced back at the heiress, "Are we all going?"

"I'm not," Weiss said, shifting so she was sitting upright. She was pale. Her fork rested on her plate, possibly to hide the shake in her hand, but her eyes were clear and focused, "Unless you want to wait a few days. But there's no guarantee we have that sort of time."

"Which is why we should see if anyone's already given the radio a shot," Ruby turned to Blake. The fire crackled. The woodpile was low. "We have to work together. If they really don't want us- if it's not just Gregor," just thinking of him gave her a burning feeling in her chest, like she got back at Beacon the times she saw Cardin pull Velvet's long Faunus ears when they passed in the hallway, "if it's not just him, we'll leave as soon as we can. But we have to try to help first."

Blake turned her head to avoid Ruby's eyes, only to find Yang staring up at her with an equally earnest look. Sometimes, the family resemblance was uncanny. Yang eventually released Blake from her gaze to focus on Ruby instead.

"If you're going to talk to the miners... take me with you."

"Seeing you is just going to agitate them." Blake interjected, suppressing a flinch at the darkened expression that settled over her partner's features.

"Yeah probably," Yang ran nervous fingertips through her hair, "but I don't want them to think I'm shirking my responsibility for this mess."

"Why would you care what they think?" Weiss addressed Yang, her gaze cold, her bearing regal even in her weakness, "Blake's right. If we have to contact the miners, fine, but you're not suited for negotiations."

For a second, Yang looked like she might argue, but she visibly deflated shortly thereafter, slumping against the couch with downcast eyes.

Blake moved to sit on the floor beside her partner in a silent show of support, resting what she hoped was a comforting hand on the brawler's knee, but her words were aimed at Ruby. "So I guess this means we're splitting up again?"

"Nope," Ruby grinned, pulling a slightly crumpled envelope from he back of her cardboard diagram, "This time, they're coming to us."

Weiss choked on her macaroni. "Here?"

"Yep. Anyway, it's not like they don't know where we are. I figure we'll talk on the roof," Ruby flipped the envelope in her hands. It was addressed, in Ruby's sloppy engineering scrawl, to 'James Pointers who want to talk' and contained a single sheet of notebook paper.

Blake nodded in wholehearted acceptance of the plan, glad there was a way to keep everyone close by, but she squinted at the handmade piece of mail, dubious as to how Ruby planned on delivering it. "Is that... a letter?"

"Yes it is," Ruby said, and from behind her back she produced a sizable chunk of granite. "And this is a rock. The catapult is on the roof. Well, it's not really a catapult- it's just the chimney and... uh... you don't mind if we use Gambol Shroud for a minute?"

With a good-natured eye roll, Blake unsheathed her weapon and handed the ribboned blade to her team leader. "We should be careful. It won't help our standing much if we go around breaking windows with rock-propelled messages."

"I'm a sniper, remember? I've got good aim," Ruby tucked the envelope into her belt to take her teammate's weapon, glancing at Weiss and the bruise that showed across her cheek and temple. She gripped the fist sized stone, setting her jaw. If they were aiming for Gregor's house, she might have hunted for a cinder block instead. But this was the clinic. It sounded like Cyan and Curtis had been doing their best. She rolled to her feet, giving a thumbs-up with the hand holding the rock. "Yang, wanna help?"

"Huh?" Yang blinked, coming back down to earth from wherever her mind had wandered to, "Oh, yeah sure." She stood and straightened her jacket,offering Ruby an absentminded smile. "Whatever you need, sis."

"Great. C'mon," Ruby caught Yang's arm and dragged her to the cabin door.

Weiss buried her arms beneath the blankets on her lap as the cold from the opened and shut door reached the couch. Her plate sat at the foot of the couch, clearly abandoned. She exchanged a glance with Blake, "Do you honestly think this is a good idea?"

In the absence of their partners' unique warmth of heart, Blake felt her expression cool to match Weiss's own icy visage. "No," she admitted after a short pause, "I think we should call in reinforcements and leave." Her Faunus ears flattened in frustration at the memory of how quickly those sad, thankful smiles she'd been graced with upon her arrival at the mines had turned sour, distrustful, even hateful once she'd lost the protection of her bow. She had no tolerance for hypocrites.

"I see no reason to trouble ourselves with a town that clearly wants nothing to do with us," Blake said in a low growl as she leaned back against the couch, crossing her arms. "Which... is probably why I am not this team's leader," she sighed.

Weiss remained silent for a moment.

"Our scrolls haven't been working for a while now," she said, brow furrowed as she gathered the blankets up to her shoulders. "We're supposed to send in reports every day."

"Reports are the least of our worries right now." Blake's head dropped backwards onto the couch, closing her eyes in a futile attempt to ward off the general feeling of unease that had been growing since she first set foot in that cavern with Yang.

Would the miners keep attacking, forcing them to raise their weapons against civilians? Would any of them survive their next round with the seemingly endless supply of Grimm infesting the mountains? Even if they did, and made it back to Beacon, would they be punished? Held back a year for such poor results? Would Yang be expelled for reckless endangerment?

A soft creaking sound filtered through the Faunus's negative haze, and she opened her eyes, ears twitching towards the ceiling, eager for something neutral to focus on. After silently tracking the footsteps treading across the roof for a while, Blake got to her feet. Turning to glance between Weiss and the abandoned plate of food.

"Try to eat some more if you can. I have a feeling we're going to need you at full strength sooner than later."

Weiss's troubled expression gave way to annoyance.

"Please, I know what my body needs. If you want to be helpful, keep Yang off my case," she crossed her arms under the blankets, "And don't try to cuddle me."

Blake squinted down at the heiress, quietly whispering as she turned to head into the kitchen, "Cactus."

Weiss settled back down on the couch, kicking the blankets into place over her legs and allowing her scowl to soften into an uncertain frown. The fire crackled, and Yang and Ruby clomped around on the roof.

To be honest, Weiss didn't care all that much for sending reports, and there were much bigger problems to worry about at the moment, but Beacon's system was in place for a reason. Small villages like these often disappeared without a trace, occasionally taking Huntresses and Huntsmen with them. Steady communication was one of the only means school had of keeping track of its students once they were out in the field.

Two consecutive days of missed reports was grounds enough to send in a support team to help or, as was more often the case, pick up whatever pieces were left. A false alarm enacted due to a team forgetting to send its reports was grounds for suspension from all fieldwork. Weiss remembered glaring holes in the side of Ruby's head as she took notes that class, knowing the younger girl would be apt to forget that detail.

Now, with the attack and the snowstorm, they'd failed to report. Not just for two days, but for however long the storm had lasted, plus one and a half clear days afterward. They were only a couple of hours out by airship.

Weiss gazed into the dwindling fire, searching the coals for the answer to the nagging question:

Why hadn't Beacon sent anyone after them?

A/N: Shout outs to MysteriousGuy, whose reviews always make our day, and the guest who suggested that all the smoke they saw last chapter was from the burning of bodies. I would say "Wow, morbid much?" except we did kill pretty much the whole town.

Anyway, yeah. Love you guys. See you next week, possibly on an actual Tuesday for once!

-Fiercesomest

Super secret extra A/N: yeah seriously so much love to all you guys you are so patient and fabulous and wonderful and HUGS for ALL y'all

-Defenestrator