Qrow sat at her bedside, almost counting each breath she took.

"How is she?" A very tired voice asked behind him. "Better after I pumped her full of drugs." He said bitingly. He felt bad because Ozpin was just asking but Qrow was torn up inside.

Dahlia lay on the small cot, deep in the vault beneath the school. Her Aura was so weak he could barely feel it. If I hadn't encouraged her… If I hadn't made her so bloody determined to save Elisa Thayet… she had all her hopes of the future riding on saving her and I crushed them.

"What happened?" Ozpin asked, taking the other chair next to the cot. Qrow sighed, his chest feeling like it was full of lead. "She lost the lady." There was a moment when neither of the men moved. Then Ozpin sighed. "That would do it, wouldn't it?"

Qrow remembered the moment he heard the scream coming from inside the infirmary. He had been perched on a branch just outside and he'd changed so fast that he'd gotten whiplash. She was screaming so terribly. He'd never heard her scream that way in all the time he'd known her and he'd seen her breakdown badly before.

He'd caught her just before she hit the floor and carried her to her room. He tried to find her friends but when he came back to the room, he'd been shocked at what he found.

She had taken a knife and was carving it deep into her flesh, growling and crying like a mad dog. It couldn't kill her but she'd been trying to hurt herself enough that the pain in her chest would go away. She'd stabbed herself in the gut, cut off three of her fingers and was about to stab her eye out when he'd caught her and wrestled the knife away. She had been in so much pain but at the same time, not nearly enough.

The knife wounds had vanished slowly and he'd carefully dosed her with enough tranquilizer to down an Ursa. Then he brought her here. In this state, she was vulnerable and Qrow hadn't forgotten that her hunters were still lurking in the school.

They'd never find her here.

He wanted to brush the hair away from her too-pale face but he resisted touching her. He'd done enough damage already. Dahlia would blame herself but he knew who was really to blame for Dahlia's misfortune.

"She almost died." He said quietly. He watched his friend carefully, seeing if there was any change but Ozpin's face never strayed from his calm, yet concerned expression. "She had drained her soul into Elisa Thayet, trying to keep her alive. But Elisa Thayet was dead in all ways but the final one by the time she came to Beacon. Dahlia kept her alive for three days before there was no more soul for her to give. She kept a dead body alive for three full days, Ozpin." The Headmaster sighed. "She's something special, Qrow." It was quiet and gentle. Qrow could hear beneath it though. "And if the Thayet woman hadn't put an end to it, she would have given her everything and died right there. She's crazy." Qrow said, angrily. After all she had done, all she had accomplished, how could she just give up like that?

Ozpin put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "We both know why she feels the need to prove herself, Qrow." He looked down at his beloved's face and felt utter dread. When she woke, how would she be? Would she even be able to stand being near him? He hoped so. He didn't think he could do without her ever again.

She would have to be strong enough to get up again, and strong enough, like the Thayet woman, to let go of the guilt that he knew she would drown herself in. She would have to be strong enough once again.

"I know. But how much more can she take, Oz? How beaten down does a person have to be before the world stops asking things of them?"

They looked at the silver haired girl who had come to mean so much to them, to everyone and had no answer.

I was cold. The mattress beneath me was thin enough that the chill leaked through it into my back while the blanket was like paper against the cold.

I didn't like being cold but man, I sure liked being blank. I couldn't really remember much but that made me sure that I didn't want to remember.

It wasn't till my toes went numb that I decided it was time for me to move and find somewhere more comfortable to be half dead.

I was dressed in a white infirmary gown and my feet were bare. My hair had been brushed and I felt clean for the first time in what seemed like forever. What in the name of…

My surroundings were unfamiliar and I disliked that immediately. I seemed to be in a castle with marbled pillars in the walls and vaulted ceilings. It was also entirely devoid of life. "Where am I?" I said out loud and I listened to it echo down one of the hallways close to me. The halls were so wide you could fit a freighter through them if they flooded.

I stood on very shaky legs and realized that I wasn't sick anymore. If my legs wobbled, that was because I was still sleepy but I didn't feel positively drained. My head was clear, my eyes were normal. My leg still hurt but it was normal pain, the kind I managed every day since I was twelve.

What kind of drug did they give me because I needed more of it! I thought smiling fuzzily. Sleep. My awake brain said to my sleepy brain. You've actually slept.

Genius, I thought. Or my sleepy brain thought. "Sleep is a wonder drug." I said out loud to the empty, cavernous halls.

Then, as my sleepy brain vanished, I remembered it.

All of it.

"No, no, no, no, noooo…" I said, wrapping my arms around me tightly and tried to hold myself against the grief. I had failed. I hadn't been strong enough to save her. If I had just been a little stronger, if my Semblance had fewer limits then she wouldn't have died.

Elise and Elin must be furious with me, I thought painfully. I had just gained two more siblings and now they surely hated me.

I had failed. My Semblance had failed. In all my life, it had never once let me down. I'd always been able to push it hard enough to Heal whatever needed healing. Even when totally drained, I had been able to squeeze enough out to save what needed saving. But it failed me this time. When I needed it most, my Semblance had failed me. My soul hadn't been strong enough.

"DAMN IT!" I screamed, slamming my hand into the wall. My hand broke painfully from the force but in a minute it was fixed.

It felt like a betrayal.

How could I heal so easily but I couldn't make Mama Thayet's heart beat on its own?

I had killed her.

I never should have let her go.

There was an emptiness inside me. A hole that she had filled, one that my own mother had once occupied. Now, both of them were gone. I couldn't save either of them. Always too weak to save those that truly needed saving.

I flexed the hand I had just broken, remembering the madness that had come over me just after Qrow had set me down in my room to go find someone who could help me. Poor Qrow, I thought grimacing. I hadn't been thinking when I took up the knife. I had just wanted to make the pain in my chest stop. I couldn't die, but I could suffer and Gods, I wanted to suffer.

I still could see his face so clearly when he had come back to the room. Shock and terror written across his handsome features and terrible guilt in his piercing red eyes.

My bed was soaked in blood, the fingers I had cut off laying on the pillow and the knife descending towards my eye. I couldn't get the image of Mama Thayet out of my mind. Laying so peaceful in death, as if with a touch I could wake her up.

But her skin was cold and there was no life in that body anymore. I had let it slip away.

Qrow had drugged me and I was grateful for it. I hated that I had made him so worried. I wasn't surprised that he wasn't there. He probably couldn't look at me without remembering.

I sent my Semblance out in a ring around me, searching for life in those empty halls. I was still shaking from the memories but I needed to find Elise and Elin. I needed to tell them how sorry I was. I thought about calling over the earpiece but I rebelled against the idea of trying to apologize through technology. I needed to see their faces, I needed to feel their Auras so that I could try to mend what I had broken when I let Mama Thayet die.

What I found was shocking. There was someone down here. Someone who didn't feel right.

I'm beneath the school… inside the door I meant to break in before…

Orchid leaned against the wall and the familiar feeling of her in my hand gave me the strength to walk away. The orchid patterns dug into my skin, comforting like nothing else. My feet made no noise on the marble floor while Orchid made a soft click.

Whoever was down there with me was filled with agony and that pain drew me like a siren song. I felt its tug in my chest and it sent shivers across my skin. So I followed, like the unwary sailor walking into the sea for that song.

"Hello?" I called. "Who's down here?" No one responded. "Hello?"

The only noise in the halls was my staff on the cold marble until I turned a corner into what seemed to be a hallway, even larger than the ones I had been following. And in the silence, I heard an achingly familiar noise. Wheeze, clunk, wub, purr, wub, clunk, wheeze.

It wasn't long until I found the end of the hallway and sank to my knees beneath the weight of my despair.

I recognized most of the contraption as one of the rehabilitation tanks that stabilized a broken body as long as they stayed comatose. But there were two of them, adjacent to each other, connected by a strange and frightening machine of wire and pipes.

I couldn't imagine what the purpose of that machine could be but I recognized the feel of the tattered soul that had called me through the halls. "Gods Above, not again." I moaned, curling into myself. Not again, please. I can't do this all over again.

The girl inside was about my age, maybe younger. She had shoulder length gold brown hair that curled in at the bottoms and golden skin. She had curves that were blossomed but her face still held that hint of youthfulness, of innocence… at least, that's what I saw beneath the scars.

The pain this girl radiated made me warm in the cold halls, as if the agony gave off a heat of its own. It had its own kind of heartbeat. I wanted to beat my hands into the ground and scream. Her pain called to me, begging for me to use my skills to bring her back.

But how could I save her, a stranger, when I couldn't even save a woman I loved?

It wasn't fair.

Damn it, it wasn't fair!

I had already failed once! I didn't want to try again! I didn't want to fail again!

"I can't save you! I'm not strong enough! Why can't you see that?!" I screamed at the girl in the tank, so full of rage and pain. How dare they ask me to try again. How dare she use her pain to call me here and make me feel like I had to save her. I was done trying to save other people. I couldn't even save myself.

"Leave me alone!"

My scream bounced off the marble and echoed through the cavernous halls, like a great stone tomb. I was breathing really hard and I no longer felt the cold. I was angry!

How could they do this to me? The tears that wouldn't be held back fell, hot and salty against my cheeks. How could they do this to me again? Hadn't I done enough?

The girl shifted inside her tank, flinched as if I had struck her.

I sniffed and rubbed the back of my head across my eyes as I sat on my feet, trying to control my unruly emotions. It wasn't this girl's fault. She had no idea I was here, had no clue that her pain was calling me like a bee to nectar. She didn't know that the sight of the stupid tank would cause me such debilitating pain.

I knew better than to scream at an innocent victim. Of course, I knew better.

Slowly, I dragged myself off the floor, leaning on Orchid for strength. Unwilling, yet unable to stop myself, I limped toward the machine and towards the girl.

She wore only a white breast band and white shorts that made her golden skin seem much darker. I saw tubes going into her that gave her fluids and nutrients since they couldn't give her food. The awful scars on her face were like nothing I had ever seen before. They were dark and malignant and almost… splattered across her face, centering on her left eye. Poor soul, I thought aching for her.

She felt so broken.

"H-Hello. I'm Dahlia." I said, hesitantly. I could feel her attune slightly to the sound of my voice. "I'm… sorry if I'm disturbing you… I just felt your pain… who are you?" I said, getting steadily closer to the tank.

When I reached the screen, I pressed a finger gently against the screen and a full body analysis popped up before me. She glowed with injuries that should have been healed long ago. In the corner, her name was notated among the various measurements the machine kept track of.

"Amber?" I looked back at the reclined tank that held her. "Is that your name? Amber?" Her odd feeling awareness brushed against me.

She was frightened. Oh, so frightened.

"Hey, there's no need for that. You're safe here. While you may not be getting any better, you're stable enough. You're okay, Amber." I murmured, stretching a tentative thread out to her battered emotions. The wrongness became more apparent as I tried to calm her down.

"Gods Above, what happened to you?"

Her Aura was an aching, bleeding thing. So weak and fragile, barely feeling like an Aura at all. It was as if someone had taken it and ripped it in half, leaving this broken soul behind in its wake.

Perhaps, that's exactly what happened.

Beneath the soul's agony, I could feel the body's. Deep tissue bruising, broken ribs, some old weak internal bleeding, various burns and scrapes and the wounds that criss-crossed her lovely young face. So frightened and so, so lonely.

"Do you mind if I keep you company?" I asked timidly. I spotted the chair, tucked behind the other side of the machine and carefully I pulled it out and sat down on it, thankful to sit. My leg ached in time with her pulsing pain.

"It seems… awful lonely down here. With just you. I can't imagine what happened to you and I'm so sorry." I said, barely conscious of the threads I wrapped around her. I eased some of her pain and dull the sense of her soul being ripped apart. It pleased me to see her face relax. She was even more lovely when her face wasn't pinched with fear and strain.

Somewhere in my mind the words 'second chance' whispered but I brutally quashed that whisper. I couldn't save her. I couldn't save anyone. But somehow being around someone who was in so much pain… made mine feel so much smaller.

"I wish I knew what happened to you. If I did, maybe then I could help you. But I don't really know if I could do anything for you." My voice got thick. "You see… there was someone a lot like you… She was stuck in one of these cursed things too and she was… well, she was dying… and I promised I could save her but I just couldn't and I lost her." The tears streamed down my face. "I just couldn't make her heart beat on her own. She was already dead and I can't bring the dead back to life." I cried, holding myself tightly. Bitterness left an acrid taste in my mouth. "I wasn't strong enough to give her her life back." I took deep breathes and sniffled. When would I finally be able to stop crying over everything? When would the end to the grief come?

"And now, here you are. Before, I wouldn't have even hesitated. I would have wrapped you in as many threads as I could and I would have done my damnedest to fix you because I'm Mommy Quicksilver and I'm supposed to be able to fix everything." I sobbed, feeling the pain deep in my chest.

Some of the threads got a queer feeling to them. She wasn't exactly projecting, but it felt like some deep part of Amber's psyche was trying to comfort me.

I could feel the sweetness in her nature that reminded me so much of Pyrrha. I could almost imagine seeing her eyes overflow with kindness and a sassy smile on her lips. There was a deep well of strength in her and I suspect that's what enabled her to survive with such grievous wounds. But without the rest of her soul, she couldn't heal her body. The only problem was, I couldn't imagine what color her eyes were so it smudged the image a bit.

"You don't have to do that. I know, it's survivor's guilt. I lived while she died and it just doesn't seem fair, after everything that we had been though, to lose her too." I wiped my nose and my eyes on the nightgown I wore. "It's just simply not fair." I said. Then I laughed. A short, harsh laugh. "Listen to me, talking about fair to someone as hurt as you. I'm breaking all the healer's rules I've made for myself."

I gave the unconscious girl a watery smile. "I'll try. I can't promise anything. But I'll try. Not for the second chance… I can't get one of those since she is gone. I'll do this for you, Amber. And maybe, just a little bit for me." I said, scooting my chair closer.

"I suppose you wouldn't mind hearing a little girl's sob story? It's a long one but we've got time." I stretched a few more threads into her, easing a bit more pain in her.

Then I started talking. I started from the beginning, with a man named Omar Derivalle and a woman named Halia Whitetail. And I just kept talking, like I had never done before to a single living soul.

It still hurt. But for me, it was enough.

They got me again.

No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, I always ended up in the dirt with my part of my power and part of my soul stolen.

Every time, it got a little harder to fight.

I could see them so clearly. The girl with the red eyes and green hair who could cloud my mind, the boy with the metal legs, and her.

The girl with black hair, golden eyes, and a cruel smile.

If I had just been a little quicker, just had a little more control over my power, I might have been able to stop them from taking what was mine.

The scene started over. Amber couldn't stop it from happening, could only go on reliving the afternoon that her life had been destroyed.

It isn't fair, she screamed at herself. It had been a plan laid too well, the people she fought too powerful. And she, the most powerful of all, had been the greatest of fools.

She should have run. She should have gutted the black haired girl first. She should have…

Amber watched herself go through it all again, reliving it for the thousandth time. She had been going through this cycle ever since the day it happened. She'd tried to break it, tried to wake up but she simply couldn't. She was so caught up in the memory she had lost herself.

Each time, she'd swear it was the last. That she'd give up. But every time her pride, which had been her downfall, wouldn't let her give up. Eventually, she thought, I'll win. But there was a voice always whispering inside her, that she'd never win. That she would die here in this Gods forsaken memory.

She felt the explosion rip across her skin. Felt her power rise like a tide inside her, offering itself to defend and protect herself.

She could still feel the grip of her staff in her fingers. Still feel the sharp pain of her broken ribs. Her fury let her raise her staff over her head but the arrow punched into her back and crippled her.

Get up! She screamed at herself. Don't let a measly arrow bring you down, get up and fight! But she never listened. She watched that bug-Grimm appear from the palm of the girl's hand. Felt it splatter its connective goo across her face.

And then felt it rip her soul apart.

And when she passed out, she only awoke, to find herself back on her horse, slowly walking down that country road on a cloudy autumn day.

Please stop, she sobbed. It hurt too much. She didn't want to do it again. To feel that fear and helplessness.

I give up, she said to herself. I give up. They can have it. I don't want this wretched power. I just want to go home.

"Come on, Amber. You know giving up isn't the way out." A voice called and the memory froze as the girl with the green hair and the boy with the metal legs attacking her once again.

"Huh?" She said, utterly confused. She pulled her hands off her staff and stared at them. This was the first time this had ever happened. The first time she had ever deviated from the memory cycle. She glanced around.

"Over here, darling." That voice called full of warmth and compassion.

Amber glanced around and her eyes settled on a figure, standing beneath a silver birch tree with bright red leaves. And she was beautiful.

Her hair was like starlight and her eyes like sapphire gems that twinkled with every intense emotion mankind had ever experienced. Her face was both young and old but her movements were strong and graceful. Her generous, supple figure was draped in a flowing dress that looked like it had been spun from moonbeams.

"Come here, Amber. Come sit with me." She called, ever so gentle.

Amber found herself running toward that girl, tears in her eyes and joy in her heart.

The young woman opened her arms and as Amber dove into that embrace, she knew for the first time in years that she was safe. "Dahlia!"

Loving hands stroked her hair from her face and warm lips pressed to her brow. "Hello, sweet Amber." Dahlia pulled the crying girl down to the soft earth and leaned them both against the trunk of the silver birch tree.

"Don't give up, Amber. Don't let them win." Dahlia said, encouragement warm in her voice as she gripped Amber's hand in her own. While Amber felt painfully real, Dahlia seemed like a ghost. A woman made of mist and star.

"It's so hard, Dahlia. It's so, so hard to keep fighting. To keep losing. This is a fight I just can't win." Her lower lip quivered and she felt terrible for crying on the shoulder of a girl who had been through so much. Amber wasn't sure how she knew that but she knew it to be true. Yet, there was no judgment or anger in Dahlia's eyes. Only kindness and compassion in depths that Amber could not imagine. There was sadness too, but not pity. Dahlia knew Amber to be too strong for her to pity the Fall Maiden.

"I know it's hard, Amber girl. I know how much it hurts." Amber was amazed but Dahlia really did know how much it hurt. They shared a deep connection that shared not just pain, but strength and understanding.

It was like nothing Amber had ever felt and she found herself speechless. Even as a Maiden, she had been pretty much on her own. Sure, the secret order was there but none of them could understand the pressure she had been under. She had wanted to do so well and help the world where she could. She wanted to defend it from the darkness and spread goodness to those who needed it.

Instead, she had been attacked and had failed everyone.

"Not everyone." Dahlia murmured. Amber hadn't realized how much she had been sharing. "You only fail them if you give up." Dahlia wrapped her arms around the other girl and rested her cheek on Amber's thick brown hair. Amber wrapped her arms around the silver girl's waist and tucked her head into the crook of Dahlia's neck and breathed in the girl's sweet scent.

They talked and cried and held each other as if time had no meaning to either of them. It was such a relief for Amber. Even if only for a little while, she didn't have to fight. She didn't have to be strong or face an enemy she knew she would lose to. She was safe in Dahlia's arms beneath the silver tree and for Amber, it was enough.

"I'm sorry, but I have to leave now." Dahlia whispered. Amber didn't want to let go, but Dahlia was becoming less and less real. Together, they walked over to the place she had stood, waiting to be attacked once again.

"Remember, you only fail if you give up," Dahlia said, that sad-sweet smile on her unmarred face. She began to fade. But before she vanished, her lips found Amber's ear. "And soon, you're going to beat them. You're going to win."

Those phantom lips vanished and Amber got into her fighting stance. Slowly, the green haired girl and the boy with the metal legs started towards her but she no longer despaired. She could still feel the strength Dahlia had left behind for her.

She fought them as hard as she could, like she had when she first did. The strangest thing happened though. When the moment came for her to get shot it the back… the arrow never came.

She still ended up on the ground with her soul ripped apart, but it wasn't the same memory. It was different. The arrow had never come and the constant nagging pain of the wound had vanished.

And when she woke up back on her horse, everything felt different. This was no longer the fight she had fought for so long. The wounds she had taken before vanished. She always still ended up in the dirt, soul and power half stolen, but it was harder for her enemies with every cycle now.

Her ribs didn't ache anymore. The bruises that had pulsed beneath her skin were gone, the burns and the scratches. They were gone.

The memory had changed and Amber felt ready to fight back. She still ended up in the dirt, but things were changing. It was just a start.

But for Amber, it was enough.