A/N: Hey guys! I thought I'd give you one last chapter before my exams. But those are done soon, then I'll have all sorts of time for writing.
Oh! I should mention that I'm starting another story as well. I'll post a brief summary at the end of this chapter and post the first chapter so you can tell me what you think. This doesn't mean I'm gonna stop with Scattered Petals, I just had another story idea and felt the need to write it down.
Anyways, here's your chapter, and as always leave a review! I love reading them. And a big thanks to everyone who follows/favs this story too.
People don't generally appreciate prolonged periods of unconsciousness. There is an unmistakable lack, an acknowledged missing, when you return to the conscious world. Missed time. Missing out. Missed opportunities. Missing, miss, missed, misses. Or, the missing of being missed. If you were unconscious, how could you ever respond to a search call, a signal flare… the kind of alert that others perform to let you know that you are worth it and you are missed?
Yet the stupor of the unconscious is safe-haven; it is remote and removed and resplendent in its blankness.
Why do so many seek the blackout? Lethe-like waters of alcohol? Coma-inducing nothing of drugs? There must be some redeeming factor for so many to seek such a state of obstinate unawareness.
Forgetting.
It's a memory slippage. The way things were and then weren't due to a disremembering. Like a tree falling in a forest in a forest.
Sound?
Silence?
Does an action retain its consequence if you forget the action entirely? Does losing a part of yourself even matter if you never knew you had a self in the first place?
Being unconscious is like an intractable forgetting. Some huge moments you may never recall, but the innocuous actions still possess startling potency in a hazy dream state.
Like pasta on a shirt.
Or the feel of a hand on an elbow.
The lending of a pair of shorts. The first experience with sharing in a selfish world.
A shock of brown and red hair.
Eyes like liquid gallium.
A smile as bright as the sun.
Little moments that seep through to oblivion, persist in dream-like manifestations. An osmotic anchor for the soul to reality.
Weiss hated awake, hated awareness. Awake meant pain, or sadness, or loneliness.
Weiss hated awake.
But she feared sleep more.
She feared never waking up again, even if it was for the better.
Waking was consciousness. Weiss's awareness that she was unpredictable, afflicted… and broken.
Weiss hated the action of waking, because it meant facing her fears.
It meant facing herself.
She woke reluctantly. To warm blankets and crinkly leather. To the dull roar of engines and the popping of ears as pressure changes. She opened her eyes and looked around before spotting a familiar head of red-tipped hair in the seat ahead of her in an otherwise empty plane. She tried to stand up and groans as shooting pain courses through the left side of her torso, causing her to plunge back into her seat. Red was at her side before the groan fully left her lips.
"Hey there, take it easy." She said in a low voice.
"What-what happened?" Weiss asked. "Last I checked we were being held at gunpoint. Now we're on a plane to-where exactly?"
"Montreal," answered Red. "We went out the window and ended up in the Gulf. I dragged you to shore where I met up with Yang and Blake. We hijacked a ride to the airport where a contact got of mine got a private plane ready for us."
"Where are Yang and Blake?"
"They got on a different plane. Yang took a bullet through the shoulder (she's fine by the way), and they decided they wanted a little down time off the continent."
"So why are we headed to Canada?"
"I have a safe house there. You'll see. We should be landing soon."
Sure enough, they landed and were greeted by a car at the runway. The drive to the safe house was uneventful, though Weiss got to see parts of rural Quebec that looked like they belonged on the brochure for a ski resort. Eventually they left the small French villages behind for nothing but picturesque country side where they drove for another thirty minutes.
Clearly Red and Weiss had very different ideas of safe houses.
Knowing her luck, Weiss had fully expected some rickety log cabin in the middle of the woods. Instead, while still made of wood, Weiss looked upon the poster house for country getaways. It had two stories and was significantly bigger than the average cottage. The pillars that supported the roof over the porch were intricately carved in the image of various woodland animals. There was a balcony around the back that provided a lakeside view that, while beautiful in the winter weather with its flawless frozen surface reflecting the rising sun and halo of snow around the banks, Weiss could tell that its true value was during the summer and fall months when the leaves on the trees would provide a picturesque wreath around the water while blocking the balcony from the view of wandering eyes at the lake. The modest yet intricate details all around the building were further bolstered by the feeling in her chest when the heiress looked to her right at the taller woman standing next to her staring at the cottage proudly before going and holding the door open for her.
It was a feeling she had never felt whenever she entered her father's house. Red holding the door for her as she entered made her feel not just welcome in the con woman's abode, but like she was wanted there. As if both Red and the cottage itself wanted her specifically to join them in this remote getaway deep in the mountains of Quebec. Unlike at her father's house, she felt like she was not just a guest being allowed to take shelter under someone else's roof, but a friend that the younger woman wanted to share her home with.
It was a feeling she had never felt whenever she entered her father's house. It was a feeling of belonging.
As she crossed the threshold she stumbled as the exhaustion from the last few days caught up to her. Red was next to her in a flash, supporting her and guiding her upstairs to a nearby bedroom. She lowered Weiss onto the mattress before crouching onto one knee to slowly untie the heiress' boots. She removed them gently then rose and lowered the exhausted woman to the mattress, guiding her head to the pillows before pulling the large duvet over her and tucking the heiress in.
The entire time Weiss was in Red's arms she could feel the care with which the con woman was handling her. Unlike the serving staff at her father's house or the many suitors she had been forced to dance with at her father's corporate events, who handled her like some sort of china doll that would shatter should they drop her, Red merely supported her. She held Weiss up in a way that allowed her to walk on her own but provided something she could lean on should she need it. Instead removing Weiss from the danger, she removed the danger from Weiss. The arm around her waist was not patronizingly careful and cautious, nor was it stiflingly prohibitive and confining, instead it was gentle yet firm. It wasn't there for any other reason than to simply remind her she was safe.
Weiss's head hit the pillow and she was asleep almost immediately. The only thing she would remember when she woke up was the feeling of fingers softly running through her hair while lips pressed feather-light on her temple, and that for the first time in her life…
…She was home.
*(0OoO0)*
Ruby closed leaned against the door that separated her from the angel sleeping in her bed.
This whole "staying her friend" thing is gonna be a lot harder than I thought.
She sighed. Now wasn't the time for those kinds of thoughts, there were still a bunch of questions she needed answered. Who was that guy in the bowler hat? What was he doing at the engineering firm? Who hired him, and on top of that why did they hire him to shoot Weiss? She put her hand in her pocket, and for the millionth time, pulled out a ring. She had lifted it off Bowler Hat Guy when he grabbed her, and had been studying it intently from the moment she got on the plane in Miami to their touchdown in Montreal, stopping only to check on Weiss from time to time.
It was a simple silver ring with a ruby about the size of a nickel on it. Engraved on the face of the ruby was an ornate rose made out of onyx or jet, along the band a string of gold roses were engraved into it. The inside had some sort of inscription on it, but it was too damaged to read with the naked eye, she'd have to take it to get refined so she could get a scan of the inside and find out what it said. The more she thought about it, the less appropriate the term "simple" seemed to be. The ring was the only piece of this puzzle she had and it was already a puzzle in itself.
Ruby reached the stairs and let out a mighty yawn. These questions could wait until she at least had a proper night's sleep. She proceeded to make her way down the stairs and bee lined to the one of the other bedrooms in her forest home, wincing with every other step as her ribs ignited from the exercise. She reached her room and stopped only to check her bandages before undressing and climbing into bed with a sigh of relief as she succumbed to dreams of silver hair and ruby rings.
*(0OoO0)*
Weiss woke to the sound of a door slamming followed by what had to be large rocks being thrown into a blender. It wasn't deafening, but it was persistent in its attempts to keep Weiss from returning to her restful slumber. She rolled over and winced, her torso screaming at her to stay down. Weiss gingerly removed the covers before standing and removing her clothes with the same surgical precision. Unable to find the light switch she felt her way to the set of large curtains that covered the floor to ceiling windows. She moved them aside to see that sun had almost completely set, the last rays of the day reflecting off the frozen lake and through the window to illuminate the room just enough for her to find the light switch near the door. The light above brightened and she got a look at the room for the first time.
Hardwood floors matched perfectly with the log cabin feel of the room. It didn't have much in the way of décor. Against one wall was the four poster bed she slept in, subdued red duvet thrown aside, next to it was a simple bedside table with a lamp and a desk on the other side. Other than that, the room seemed quite barren, though she supposed it did have a certain minimalist feel to it, especially with the scenery that was presented out the large sliding windows.
Across from the furniture was a door that led to a bathroom. She entered and headed for the tiled bathtub against the far wall, forgoing the shower for an opportunity to get back off her feet and soak her aching body. She set it to its highest temperature and looked at herself in the mirror while it filled. The sight surprised her and set off a whirlpool of different emotions.
Staring back at her was a women that looked like she had been through hell and back. Her hair was a complete disarray, sticking in every direction and to her face, and the bags beneath her eyes made her look like she hadn't slept in over a week. The soft yellow light of the bathroom did nothing to hide the abrasions on her skin, and a severely split lip. She inspected her torso and found that some of the scars along her ribs had turned an angry red to compliment the mottled blues and greens. They stood out more than usual as if to remind her of her own failures in Miami. She sighed as she added that fiasco to the growing list of things she could not fix.
There was a knot on the back of her head and a dull throb in her skull that made her left eye hurt more than ever.
Sleep was better. It dulled the pain.
Weiss thanked every deity that she knew of for the small step that made it easier to get into the tub, then immediately cursed all of their names for the pain she felt as she lowered herself into the scalding hot water. When her full body sank under the water, her muscles didn't just scream. They wailed. Dunking her head underneath was excruciating. She knew better than to inflame her skin before icing it, but she desperately wanted to be rid of every trace of what happened in Florida. Bruises and sunburns and superficial lacerations weren't conducive to leisurely baths, but Weiss forced her hands to scrub her body.
Fully awake now, Weiss drained the water, vacated the tub, dried herself and combed out her tresses. She went back to the bedroom to search for clothing. The closet wasn't empty, but she didn't have the energy or the will to try multiple pieces to see which best fit and which fabric she could bare against her raw skin. Ditching the closet she turned to find a white cotton robe folded on the bedside table next to a glass of water and two aspirin. Swallowing the pills in one gulp, she donned the robe opening the door and trekking down the (admittedly gorgeous) stairs, her ears picking up the noise of more gravel being thrown against blender blades, followed by a crash and cursing.
Following the sound, she passed through a high doorway to a kitchen with twelve foot ceilings and wooden pillars on either side of the island counter, and was greeted to the sight of Red on the ground reaching beneath the fridge while her bottom waved about like the most distracting flag in the world. Her tongue was sticking slightly out of the corner of her mouth as she reached for whatever had fallen beneath the appliance.
"Come…on…almost-Hah! Gotcha!" Red jumped to her feet, holding what appeared to be a frozen strawberry, before throwing it into the trash beneath the sink. She turned around and jumped when she laid eyes on Weiss.
"Oh, Weiss! How're you doing?" She asked as she skipped over to the blender on the counter and started to pour in frozen strawberries from the bag next to it. The roar she heard earlier began as the younger woman crushed up the berries along with an assortment of other ingredients before pouring the smoothie into two large cups and holding one out to Weiss.
The scene was so pedestrian and domestic Weiss had to contain the urge to pinch herself.
"Smoothie?" Red asked brightly.
"Thank you," Weiss said. It came out raspier than a jazz singer. Weiss cleared her throat.
Red took a sip of her smoothie and beamed. "Oh man, am I good! I knew this blender would be a good investment!"
Weiss took a sip of her smoothie and was inclined to agree with the brunette. She looked around the kitchen and spotted the plastic bags littering the counters, overflowing with enough goods to supply a military detachment for weeks. Toiletries, groceries, clothing, first-aid supplies, DVDs-were those snow shoes?
"Were you intent on buying out the nearest all-purpose store?"
Red slurped some more of her smoothie, with just the smallest bit covering her upper lip making Weiss have to fight off the urge to wipe it off with her thumb. Or better yet-
No. She shook her head and fought down a blush as Red answered. "I didn't know how long we were going to be here. Better to have and not need than need and not have."
"And you thought you would need twelve cans of low-sodium soup, two whole chicken breasts, eight packs of chocolate chunk cookies-"
"Okay, so I might have gone a little overboard. You can put the chicken in the fridge-just there-but how am I supposed to know what you like to eat? For all I know, you eat caviar off a silver platter for every meal or something like that."
Weiss closed the fridge door with a little more force than she intended.
"What?! That's absurd, of all the ridiculous-"
"Weiss," Red said, smirking as she made her way out of the kitchen toward the living area where she flopped on a big cushiony couch in front of a dormant stone fireplace. "I'm kidding. Please, have a seat."
Weiss sat on the other end of the couch, not trusting herself to sit any closer. She sat and fiddled with her hands in silence, eyes flicking to her left on occasion to briefly take in the girl next to her. She was once again in a pair of jeans that had to be a size too small for how well they hugged her toned legs and a purple tank top that showed off equally toned arms. Weiss was overtaken with the urge to give them a squeeze.
"Here," Red directed. "Lean back."
Weiss felt Red's arm loop around her shoulders and allowed herself to be pulled down gently until she was laying on the couch. She leaned her head back and winced as her head made contact with something cold.
"It'll help with the swelling," Red said gently. "We might want to take you to the hospital to get your ribs checked out."
"No need, they don't feel broken. I'll be fine after I get rest. Besides," Weiss argued, "what about you?"
"Oh I'm fine," Red replied a little too quickly. "Just a bruised rib. Don't worry about it. And what about the rest of you?"
"I don't want to, but an ice bath would probably be good. For the muscle tension."
"I bought water-proof Band-Aids. They have puppies on them."
"Thanks."
*(0OoO0)*
They sat in silence for several minutes, simply enjoying each other's company. Weiss had shifted slightly so her head was lightly resting on Ruby's thigh while she applied the compress to the knot on her skull. It would've been a nice moment if Ruby's mind wasn't a maelstrom of questions that needed answers and things she needed to do. Starting with getting access to the information she stole back in Miami. To do that she would need a computer and access to her servers, meaning going back into town. She already had a meeting scheduled with one of her contacts in a couple days, and if she was completely honest with herself, she could use the downtime. Probably take the time to introduce Weiss to some of the more well-known movies in her collection.
She was shaken from her thoughts when she felt the girl below her shiver slightly.
"Oh, God! You must be freezing!" She said. "Here let me start a fire." She gently removed the heiress' head from her lap and stood up before heading over to the large fireplace. She grabbed the fire-starter and a lighter from a nearby cupboard and went to work trying to ignite the wood that was already there.
"I forget, ya know, that some people aren't quite as used to travel from one climate to the next so easily. I mean I do it so much that even jetlag is becoming second nature to me. I wonder what that says about me as a person, eh Weiss?" She had just gotten a spark going and was blowing on it softly when she heard a sound so small she had to have imagined it.
But there it was again. The smallest little hiccough coming from the couch behind her. She turned around and saw something she thought to be impossible:
Weiss was crying. And not the stoic, I-lost-your-twenty-million-to-some-freak-in-a-funny-hat-holding-me-at-gunpoint-and-I'm-mad crying, but ugly, snotty, puffy red-eye, forehead-wrinkling weeping.
Ruby was never one to watch someone suffer. That's why she tended to leave before things turned hairy, and why she only ever visited the orphanages for a few hours at a time. This time, though, leaving wasn't an option.
She used her talents to read the woman's body language: terse lips, crossed arms, shiny eyes. Weiss was an open book (which was a first), and all that was written sent one message: wounded animal. Frightened, apprehensive, on edge, and despairing because of it. Ruby had known from day one that Weiss was a woman who exercised control in whatever she did, and the thought of losing that control, especially over herself, probably terrified the girl.
Ruby knew that, considering the turn their lives had taken, Weiss was gonna have to learn to let go, but now wasn't the time to teach that lesson. Instead she did what came naturally. She left the budding flame to sit on the cloud-like cushions and gathered the platinum-haired woman up in her arms, petting and shushing and cooing while she let her companion work out whatever was causing the statuesque marble façade the heiress normally wore to crumble before her. The robe clad woman clutched at Ruby's T-shirt, sniffing and crying sloppy salt water onto her shoulder. Her ribs burned ad Weiss clutched the fabric over her stomach, hands quivering.
She looked down at the older woman's back, the barest hint of a scar peeking out from the back of her robe.
*(0OoO0)*
What was wrong with her?
Red had come in and was acting perfectly normal, as if getting shot at and under-the-radar international flights were slight hiccoughs in an otherwise normal week, and before Weiss knew what was happening, she was bawling into the con woman's shirt.
"Hey, c'mon," Red whispered. "It's gonna be fine."
How?
How could anything possibly be fine?
She wanted to voice the question that was buzzing around her mind like an angry hornet. She wanted to scream it at the top of her lungs. But every time she opened her mouth all that came were noiseless sobs. So, for the moment, she'd believe it. She'd believe that, somehow, someway, everything in her poor excuse for a life would be fine.
She had tightened her grip on the girl offering her unconditional comfort when she was brought out of her self-induced delusion by a warm wet feeling and Red tensing under her touch. She brought her hand back to see it dyed crimson, and that same dye seemed to be soaking through Red's T-shirt.
Red studied the space above Weiss intently to avoid the heiress' intense glare as she raised the con woman's shirt gently to reveal her midriff wrapped in gauze. The source of the slowly growing red mark on the young woman's left side dawned on Weiss the second she saw it.
"Look, Weiss. Before you freak out, you should know that it's not as bad as it looks. The bullet went clean through, and Blake made sure it was disinfected and it didn't even hurt that much. In fact I didn't even know I had been shot until-"
"Why?" Red looked lost as her rambling was cut off.
"W-What do you mean?"
"Why did you do it? Why are you still here? You took a bullet for me, and got me out there. And I know you've been wondering about my scar. So why are you still here? Why are you still helping someone like me?"
"'Cause you're my friend." Weiss lowered her gaze and stared at the bloody stain on Red's side solemnly.
"You're supposed to hate me."
"Hey, look at me."
She couldn't. This woman sitting in front of her was so much better than her, how could she do anything but avert her gaze in front of such purity? But the decision was taken out her hands as soft, lightly calloused fingers stroked her cheek, thumb running soothingly over the scar that had been irritating her for the past month, before gently raising her chin so that she had no choice but to be lost in those beautiful pools of silver.
"Do you remember what I told you back in New York? All the way back before that silly party?"
Crimson dresses and intimate conversations surfaced to the forefront of Weiss mind, albeit slowly and sluggishly at first. She nodded.
"I said you were beautiful, but I wasn't just talking about how you looked." Red's eyes seemed to get even deeper as she looked down at Weiss with an intense gaze, face inches away from the heiress', her sincerity was visible in the swirling mercury while she spoke in a soft, soothing tone. "Most of my job consists of reading people; getting to know them before even speaking to them. Do you wanna know what I saw in you?"
Weiss nodded slowly, unable to keep her attention of the beautiful woman holding her in her arms.
"At first, I saw what you would expect most of the world to see: a princess raised on her father's money, accustomed to getting whatever she wanted whenever she wanted it… but then I spoke to you, started getting to know you and I saw something else entirely," Red took a deep breath before tightening her arms around Weiss as if to remind her that she was there, and she was safe.
"I saw someone who had gone through hell, and came out the other side better from it. I saw someone who was living proof that adversity makes one stronger. I saw someone who, when given a challenge, wouldn't back down, but instead, put everything she had and then some into getting it done to the best of her abilities. I saw someone who knew what true pain was, and therefore, knew what other's needed." Red paused to take a deep breath before continuing.
"I don't know what it is that you went through before we met and after we parted ways in New York, but I do know that it's something that you shouldn't have had to go through alone, and from now on, you won't. You're right. I was wondering about your scars, but I'm not gonna try and pry it out of you. Instead, just know that I'm always here, and when you want to talk, I'll listen, and you can tell me as much or as little as you want." Red let go of Weiss's chin and gathered her up in a hug that proved the con woman's words to be true.
How did she do it? Never before had anyone ever been able to see right through Weiss like Red could. Even more surprising, was that instead of using what she knew for her own gain, like every person Weiss had ever met before, including her own father, Red offered an unconditional support that was completely new to the heiress along with a new feeling that accompanied the familiar tightness in her chest.
For the first time in her life, she had somebody she knew she could trust. Simply knowing that she had someone with whom she could speak to in confidence and not worry about the repercussions brought a feeling of euphoria so strong it banished any and all self-deprecating thoughts and she allowed a smile to touch her lips as she tightened her hold on Red and took in the smell of the shampoo in the girl's hair. Roses and strawberries were quickly becoming two of her favourite scents.
*(0OoO0)*
Ruby simply sat there holding Weiss, enjoying the moment. She was constantly reminding herself that it was perfectly okay for friends to comfort each other and indulge in completely-platonic-not-at-all-intimate hugs, but it was hard to not enjoy the smaller woman's arms wrapped around her waist as the smell of mint and fresh linens surrounded her, nearly wiping every rational thought from her brain.
She was just starting to not care about how intimate it was to be hugging the girl who had not only instantly taken the position of most attractive partner she had ever worked with (bumping a man she had worked with in Russia while stealing some very expensive Faberge eggs from a wealthy mafia boss to a distant second), but she was quickly finding that she was developing feelings for the snow-haired heiress. At least, that's what she thought based on the copious amounts of romance books and movies she had gone through during a phase she had gone through in her early teens. Weiss was stirring up sensations that were completely new in the red-haired and con woman, and she had no idea how to go about them, which made her uneasy, considering unknowns were liabilities in her field.
She was shaken from her musing when Weiss shifted slightly, brushing against Ruby's side, making her wince in pain and ruin the moment. Weiss leaned back and looked Ruby in the eye for a moment before standing up and pulling Ruby by the wrist.
"Come on, your bandages need changing." She said, her tone hard as she determinately stared forward while leading Ruby down the hall. Ruby grinned as she noted that Weiss was acting like her old self again. Well, almost…
There was a softness in Weiss's eyes that conveyed unspoken thanks and affection, and she seemed like she was deep in thought.
"It's the first door on the left," Ruby said, as Weiss pulled her into the bathroom and opened the cabinet beneath the sink to pull bandages and a sewing kit. She unwrapped the gauze from Ruby's torso and gasped when she saw the ugly hole in her side. The stitches Ruby had quickly put in during the flight from Miami had come undone.
"You need to get to a hospital," Weiss said shakily. "I-I don't know how to stitch someone up."
"It's okay," Ruby said calmly. "I can do it myself, but I'm gonna need your help." She grabbed Weiss's shaking hand, silently grateful that the older woman hadn't stubbornly insisted on doing the stitching like Ruby thought she would. She grabbed a towel off the rack and handed it to Weiss before sitting on the edge of the large bathtub. "I need you to hold this against my front while I stitch my back and keep constant pressure on it." Weiss nodded before kneeling down and pressing the towel to hole in Ruby's front, causing the girl to hiss in pain.
"Are you sure there isn't anything else I can do? Call an ambulance? Get you some aspirin? Anything at all?" Her concern was sweet, and maybe later Ruby would explain why the hospital wasn't the greatest idea, but right now there were more pressing issues. She looked down and smiled at the woman before shaking her head.
"No, you're doing fine. Besides the pain keeps me focused. Let's you know if you made a mistake or not." She hissed as she put the needle through her skin for the first of what looked like three or four stitches and felt Weiss tense up.
"Actually, there is something else you could do." Ruby said, smiling inwardly when she felt Weiss perk up at the thought of helping.
"Really?"
"Yup. I need you to talk to me."
"What? How will that help you?"
"Gives me something to focus on so that I don't pass out. And seeing as I can't see your pretty face, I want you to talk to me. Doesn't matter what about, just talk."
*(0OoO0)*
Weiss flushed at the compliment, but if Red was flirting then it meant she wasn't dying. Of course part of Weiss knew she shouldn't put it past the red-haired beauty to waste her dying breath on some sort of pickup line, but she shrugged those thoughts off. She sat in silence trying to think of what to say, when she heard Red hiss in pain. She thought back to the conversation they had just had on the couch and knew exactly where to start.
"It was my father." Red paused.
"What was your father?"
"The one who gave me the scar on my eye," she paused when she saw Red tense up but continued when she said nothing. "He was the one who hired us to rob Ironwood, so after he got back he asked me how everything was going. I told him about the prep we had done, and the con we pulled at the party and how well everything went, but he only seemed focused on one thing: why wasn't I the one in charge of everything?
"I tried to tell him that I had been paired up with someone who had years of experience doing those sorts of things, and was one of the best in the business, but he was having none of it. He kept arguing, saying he wasn't paying a hundred million dollars for someone he had never heard of to do the job. He wanted me to be the one in charge, so I would have experience leading people through 'certain legal grey areas'. I was supposed to lead the team for this job, then use my twenty million to start up another branch of the Schnee Company.
"I tried to argue that I was still getting experience, but he was having none of it. He called me a failure and a disappointment and I snapped. I yelled at him, called him a coward for using underhanded, illegal means to acquire something he could easily get without even denting his funds." Weiss took a deep breath and looked up at Red who had finished stitching up her back, and was looking into Weiss's eyes, a hurricane of emotions flying by in her silver orbs.
"It was his ring. It happened so fast I didn't even register it until the blood was getting in my eye. The pain came soon after, reminding me why I had stopped talking back at him all those years ago. Everything after that gets foggy, and all I can remember is feeling like my head was splitting open, and wondering if those two weeks I had spent with you had ever really happened. Then I was sent to Miami with instructions that I was to be the only one who would see the files we were stealing, and all I remember is thinking that, maybe if I do it right, he'll be proud of me." Weiss sighed and leaned around Red to wipe up the blood on her back while she stitched up her front.
"But then I saw you again. You and your sister and Blake reminded me that I was my own person, and that I wasn't defined by what my father thought of me, but what I thought of myself. You showed me that I didn't need anybody's approval to be happy. And above all else, you showed me what it's like to have friends you can trust and you literally took me far away from my old life." She stopped and looked Red in the eye. "Thank you."
There were tears in the corners of Red's eyes as she smiled down at the heiress. "You're welcome."
*(0OoO0)*
Weiss had insisted upon wrapping Ruby up in fresh gauze, which caused both girls to flush from the closeness after an afternoon of intimate life-chats. An hour later they found themselves back on the couch, Weiss lying with her head on Ruby's lap so that the younger woman could manage the various ice-packs across the white-haired woman's torso, and maybe indulge in running her fingers through the silky tresses while they watched Batman Begins.
"Oh, so when you called me Bruce back in New York-"
"Haha… yeah. I'm a bit of a nerd." Ruby said, a hand coming up to scratch her head subconsciously.
"I think it's cute." Weiss said absentmindedly, before returning her attention to the movie and nuzzling her head deeper into Ruby's lap.
Wait… Did Weiss just call me cute? Is she flirting with me?!
They were silent for another twenty minutes, enjoying the movie and each other's company before Weiss spoke again.
"Hey Red?"
"Yeah?"
"Is there a way you can make it so I don't have to go back to my father? Like some sort of contact you can call, or something?"
Ruby sighed, it made her sad and angry that this beautiful person on her lap thought she had to go back to the hell she had just escaped from, but judging from what she had just said she might not object too much to the actions Ruby had taken before leaving Florida.
"It's already been taken care of."
"What do you mean?" Weiss shifted slightly and looked up at Ruby, big blue eyes shining with curiosity.
"Well, you see, the world thinks you're dead." She was silent for a moment before she sat up on her elbows and looked at Ruby.
"What?"
Ruby paused the movie and took a deep breath.
"Well you were fading in and out of consciousness, and I knew I had to get you out of there. But if the heiress to one of the biggest companies in the world suddenly went missing-"
"There would be a manhunt." Weiss finished.
"Exactly, so I talked to a contact of mine and paid him to forge two death certificates. So as far as the rest of the world knows, Sophia Zawistow and Weiss Schnee both died in a horrible fireworks accident. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, it's just with everything that happened and all the questions I need to get answered, it kinda just slipped my mind."
Weiss sat silently for several seconds before slowly sitting up and wrapping her arms around Ruby's neck.
"Thank you."
Ruby returned the action and marveled in the feeling of joy that hugging Weiss brought. Unlike her sister, who gave out hugs like they were handshakes, and filled Ruby with a feeling of safety, signs of affection from Weiss were few and far between. Today's emotional rollercoaster being the exception. She felt like she accomplished something when Weiss hugged her, like she had earned the snowy-haired woman's affection.
They separated after a minute and Ruby looked away, suddenly feeling anxious. "Also-uh-I kinda plan on going after that guy with the bowler hat to get our money back, so-umm-if you want… maybe you could stay with me? Just until we get our money, then you can do whatever you want!"
Weiss smiled, and for the first time, Ruby saw it reach her eyes. "I'd love to."
Ruby couldn't help the face-splitting grin that found its way onto her face. "Okay."
Weiss lowered herself back to her original position in Ruby's lap and they returned to their movie. Several minutes passed before either of them spoke again.
"Hey, Red?"
"Yeah, Weiss?"
"What did you mean you had a bunch of questions that needed answers?"
Ruby sighed, if Weiss was willing to start trusting her, she might as well return the favour, especially considering how odds are they were going to be spending an awful lot of time together in the near future.
"Well, you answered a couple of them today."
"Really?"
"Yeah, since we first met, I've been trying to figure out why you were put on this job, and what it was you were bringing to the table." She looked down at Weiss and before turning her gaze back to the movie and continuing. "At first I thought you had information about Ironwood that was vital, but you didn't really know anything that was news or that I couldn't find out on my own. Then in Miami, when you said you would get the data, I became even more curious. There had to be something on that computer that our employer only wanted you seeing."
"But I didn't even get a good look at the files. I plugged it in, and a minute later I was being held at gunpoint."
"I know. But now that I know it was your dad who hired us, I have a different theory."
"Which is?"
"He wanted to simultaneously keep the documents secret and keep you under his thumb. If me, Yang, or Blake saw what we were stealing, it would be a lot harder to keep us under control. But if you were the one who actually did the stealing part, he'd be able to blackmail you into doing whatever he wanted and keep you quiet."
"Why would he want to blackmail me?"
"Because you're twenty-one."
"What?"
"Odds are that ever since you turned eighteen, he was afraid that you would realize that he had no legal hold on you, and you would run off spilling secrets and ruining his reputation. He put you on our team so that he would have leverage over you and so no one outside his control could see his secrets."
"That bastard!" Weiss muttered harshly.
"But there is a silver-lining." Ruby continued.
"And what would that be?" The sarcasm was oozing from every word as Weiss's relaxed mood was ruined.
"The secrets he stole, aren't as secret as he thinks. Even before I found out we were hired by scum disguised as a business man I didn't trust him, so the drive I gave you had a subroutine that sent everything put on it to my personal servers. That way we can see what Wilhelm Schnee was so eager to keep hidden."
Weiss relaxed slightly and turned back to the movie that was still playing. "That's good. But what about those thugs who came and messed everything up?"
Ruby sighed and absentmindedly ran her fingers through the former heiress's hair. "I dunno. I managed to lift this off the guy in the hat," she took the ring out of her pocket and showed it to Weiss. "I know I've seen that insignia before but I can't quite place it. I'm meeting a contact in a couple of days so I can get my computers back up and running but until then all we can do is rest and focus on getting better."
Weiss seemed to accept this as she laid back down and turned her attention back to the movie.
*(0OoO0)*
They spent the rest of the night watching the rest of the Batman movies and enjoying the each other's presence while the fire crackled cozily. Weiss could see why Red liked these movies. This Bruce Wayne guy reminded her quite a bit of the red-haired girl sitting above her. They were both people who had forsaken their identities so that they could help those who couldn't help themselves, and were both willing to be labeled as a villain if that's what the people needed. Albeit, this Batman character was far more violent and dark, and not nearly as attractive as the bubbly girl who was unconsciously running her finger through Weiss's hair in a gentle, soothing manner.
She waited for the backlash of guilt she normally felt when allowed her mind to succumb to the effect that Red seemed to have on her, but it never came. She was both surprised and delighted when she remembered that she had no reason to worry now, that her father no longer had control over her.
She felt Red's hand softly stroke her side, and allowed her imagination to run wild. She blushed furiously at the images that came to mind, and chased them away before focusing on the soft glow of the embers in the dying fire. She may be free to think what she wants, but she had still been raised as a lady and thoughts such as those were best left for when one was in the privacy of their own room, not, when lying on the lap of someone…
On their couch. In front of the fire. In a beautiful cottage in the middle of the woods.
She stared at the fire and tried to convince herself that there was absolutely nothing romantic about their current situation. She yawned and felt Red shift underneath her. She felt herself being moved until her head was no longer on Red's toned leg, but instead was resting on something much softer. She closed her eyes as she felt a blanket get pulled over her and she brought her arm up to grab a fistful of T-shirt. She felt a strong arm wrap around her, and a hand resume stroking her hair, before getting lost in the smell of strawberries and roses.
A/N: Alright, well that got kinda heavy, but it was fun to write! Anyways, like I said, I'm working on a new story. It's another RWBY fic, but it will be about a bunch OCs in Mistral and their adventures in Haven Academy. I don't know if the original characters are gonna appear or not, but I hope you guys will give it a read and tell me what you think!
Thanks a million!
VagueJester