AN: Sorry this took so long to get out, more on that below. Hope you enjoy!

Blake Belladonna glared at the back of her partner's head as Yang continued to watch the small fire that raged before her. This was their third night in their new home in Vale, and the third time in just as many nights that she knew that Yang had left her room in the middle of the night.

This was however, the first time that she had decided to follow her.

The first time that she had heard Yang leaving her room she had chalked it up to her being restless, something not uncommon for the blonde. The second time she heard her leave had caused her to worry slightly, especially when she found her curled up on the couch the next morning, evidence of tears apparent on her cheeks.

When she had asked her about it later that day, Yang had merely shrugged it off, saying that it was nothing. She didn't buy that for a second. The Yang Xiao Long she knew didn't just cry over nothing.

So she had decided then and there that if she heard Yang leave her room again, she'd follow her. And sure enough like clockwork she had heard her sneak out of her room at the same time as the previous two nights, albeit much quieter this time.

She must have figured that I'd be listening. Blake bristled at the thought, angry that Yang was trying to hide something from her.

Well…angry might not have been the right word. Though she would never admit it to anyone least of all herself, Blake was hurt.

Hurt that Yang had already went back on one of the promises that they both had made.

"Yang what did last mean to you?" Blake voiced the question that had burned in her throat since she had woken up earlier that day. The two girls were currently on the observation deck of the Schnee's personal airship. The deck's dim nighttime lighting made it impossible for her to read her partner's expression.

Upon their arrival in Vale they had learned, much to Weiss's displeasure that the house wouldn't be ready for them to move into until tomorrow, at the earliest. That meant they had two options: go to a hotel or spend the night in what was possibly the most luxurious airship in all of Remnant.

It had been a reasonably easy decision.

"I don't really know." Yang's words shocked Blake back to the present.

"What do you mean?"

"I enjoyed last night and I know that I really li…" Yang paused. "No, that isn't the right word. I care about you, Blake. More so than anyone I've dated in the past few years."

"So it did mean something then?"

"Well, yeah." Yang said. "Wait, is this why you've been staring at me all evening?" Blake nodded meekly, causing Yang to laugh. "Look Blake, I know I try and act all smooth and cool when it comes to stuff like this, but I'm no expert. This is something that we'll both have to work at if we really want it...You do still want to give it a try right…?"

"Yes!" Blake answered before Yang even finished asking the question causing her to blush. "I just wasn't sure what you thought. I mean we didn't really talk last night, and today we didn't really get a chan…"

Yang silenced her with a kiss; her hand came up to cup Blake's face as she pulled away. Blake leaned into the touch.

"You're really cute when you ramble." Yang said her thumb gently rubbed over Blake's cheek. Blake could feel her face redden even more as Yang continued. Her lilac eyes focused directly on Blake's own amber orbs.

"Just promise me that you'll come to me if something's bothering you, ok?"

"Only if you'll do the same."

Yang smiled, "It's a deal."

Blake shook the memory off. She didn't have time to be thinking about the past, she needed to focus on the present.

It begged the questions though. Why and what?

Why hadn't Yang come to her like she had promised to do? And what was bothering her enough to cause her to come downstairs every night to sit by the fire and cry, alone, in the first place?

Her ears twitched as she heard Yang sniffle for the tenth time since she had taken up her position at the bottom of the stairs. Just like the previous nine it made her heart stop. She could count on one hand the amount of times she had seen Yang cry, and she had always hated it. After that night on the roof, and their discussion that had followed the next day, however; she found that that emotion had been multiplied tenfold.

Deciding that she had stood idle long enough, Blake moved out and into the soft orange light of the fire. She watched as the flames danced around. She absentmindedly wondered how Yang had started the small inferno. While the house had come with plenty of wood stockpiled for the small stone fireplace, she couldn't remember ever seeing anything with which to start a fire. Then again it was Yang.

Yang must have heard her coming as the blonde's head whipped around, her hand busily wiped away at the tears on her face in a vain attempt to hide that she had been crying.

You're not hiding Yang, not this time.

"Blake?" She whispered her name as the Faunus sat down beside her.

"Yang."

Blake made herself comfortable on the couch as she looked at her partner. The tear tracks that were still evident on Yang's face sent a pang straight through her. It took all of Blake's willpower not to pull Yang to her in a hug. She knew if she did that though the chances of them talking were slim. And while it might be selfish, she needed to know what was troubling Yang.

The fire cackled drawing her attention to it and away from her partner's tearstained face. The fire's welcoming glow bathed the partner's in a myriad of oranges and yellows. She focused on it allowing herself to get lost in its warm light, anything to keep from having to look back at Yang, back at those ugly tears that marred her otherwise flawless face.

She licked her lips, "Why are you down here all alone?" Why didn't you come to me?

"It's like I told you it's…"

"Yang, don't lie to me, please." She hated the sound of her voice. Only Yang could manage to make her sound so desperate and needy at the same time. She looked back to her partner, as her own tears threatened to spill out. "Tell me what's wrong."

Yang flinched as if Blake's words had hurt her. She looked back at the fire as another tear rolled down her face.

Maybe they had.

"You'll think it's stupid."

Blake reached out and gently grabbed Yang's shoulder giving it a light squeeze. "I promise I won't."

Yang sighed.

"You know how you said you'd miss stuff that night on the roof?" Yang asked as she looked back to Blake, more unshed tears in her eyes. "It's kinda similar to that."

"What do you mean?"

"I can't even begin to tell you just how many times Ruby and me talked about what we would do when we got older." Yang started in the most sincere voice Blake had ever heard her use. "When we were younger all of this," she waved her hand at everything around them, "was just one big pipe dream, one that would probably never come true. Now that we're here…I just can't believe it."

Yang paused as she looked back to the fire a faraway look in her eye. "Everything up to this point in my life has pretty much been laid out for me. Now it's all up to me and I don't know if I…"

She choked as a fresh set of searing-tears cascaded down her face. Blake watched, she wanted nothing more than to reach out and wipe the offending tears away, but she stayed her hand. Whatever this was, Yang needed to get it out, and if she stopped her now she might never get it off her chest.

"I'm scared Blake." Yang curled in on herself as she continued. "What if something happens and I'm not there? Or worse what if I am and I can't protect whoever else is? What if I can't keep Ruby, Weiss, and you safe?"

Blake blinked away tears as she watched Yang, the strongest person she knew, fight back a sob. She understood now why her partner had been sneaking out of her room at night. She had been coming down to the couch in the hope that the others wouldn't have to see her cry.

See her break.

When they had been at Beacon, Yang had always fulfilled the role of being the big-sister. Not only to Ruby, but to herself and Weiss as well, Yang had always been the strong one, the one who wasn't allowed to ever breakdown or show signs of fear, regardless of the situation.

While Ruby had been their leader, Yang had most certainly been the team's rock.

For a while, Blake had thought, and ignorantly believed, that nothing ever could break the headstrong blonde-woman. Now she knew, saw, differently. Just like their graduation had brought out her fears of being alone. It had apparently brought out Yang's as well.

And she knew all too well how powerful the fear of the unknown was. Couple that with not knowing if you could protect your loved ones and you had something that could cripple even the most ruthless of people. Let alone someone as loving and nurturing as Yang was.

Blake wanted to slap herself. I failed her; this is why she's been behaving differently. I've just been too caught up in my own problems and insecurities to notice it.

The tears she had been holding back finally fell as she wrapped Yang in a sideways-embrace. The other girl's body continued to be racked with violent sobs as Blake pulled her closer. She cooed soothingly into the blonde's ear doing her best to calm her distraught partner.

"It's ok," Blake gently rubbed her hand up and down Yang's back. "We're all here Yang…"

Blake pulled Yang tighter to her as she felt the blonde fist her hand around her sleepwear. She continued to murmur soft reassurances to her as Yang continued to cry into her chest, thoroughly soaking her thin shirt.

"It's okay." She soothed, the sobs coming farther in-between as the other girl calmed.

"I'm here Yang, and everything is alright."

Yang shook her head, "It's not though, we said that we'd come to each other if anything bothered us and I didn't. I lied to…"

Blake stole a page from Yang's playbook. She pulled the blonde's face away from its position at her chest and kissed her. She pulled away a second later; she was greeted with a pair of, questioning, watery purple eyes.

"We can talk about that later. All I care about right now is that you are alright."

A fresh set of tears fell down Yang's face as she tackled Blake down onto the couch. She buried her face into Blake's onyx hair as she sobbed anew.

Blake held her partner close as the blonde woman whispered two words over and over between her cries.

"Thank you."

"Will you stop being so childish? We need to wake them up!"

Weiss?

"I know, but they look so cute!"

Ruby?...wait what's cute?

Blake begrudgingly opened up one amber-eye. She was in the living room…

"Finally, one of you is up!"

Blake looked to the sound of the voice. Her sleep addled eye managed to pick out the red and white forms of Ruby and Weiss. Both of whom were fully clothed and standing right beside the couch. Ruby looked like she was about to squeal in delight, while Weiss sported an expression of exasperation.

She was about to ask them what it was they were talking about when a third, muffled voice, joined the conversation.

"Quite please…sleep now."

Her other eye snapped open as she looked down at her chest, where Yang's head was now firmly nestled against her breast.

Blake felt her face go red as she realized the situation they were in. She sighed in resignation, they would have figured it out eventually…I just wish it wasn't in a way that they could endlessly tease us about.

Having accepted her fate she gently prodded Yang, if she was going down she wasn't going down alone. It was the blonde's fault that they were in this situation after all.

"Yang, honey, you really need to get up. I think Ruby and Weiss need to talk to us."

Blake had to bite back a smile as Yang tried to nestle her head deeper into her chest apparently determined to sleep away the rest of the morning. What time is it anyway?

"I should have known it would come to this." Weiss sighed. "Blake you might want to cover your ears. Ruby, go ahead."

Knowing full well what was about to happen, Blake brought her hands up to cover the cat-ears that resided atop her head. She watched as Ruby took a deep breath and raised the small whistle she pulled from the chain around her neck to her lips. Blake cursed her inability to cover both sets of her ears. Sometimes being a Faunus had its drawbacks.

Ruby blew the whistle; its shrill-high-pitched-sound filled the air. Blake winced as her unprotected ears were assaulted by the racket. You would think that after four years of this we'd be used to it.

The whistle had the desired effect as Yang bolted awake. She jumped off Blake and away from the couch, Ruby laughed as she rolled across the floor.

"Whoa!" She cried as she covered her ears. Her eyes locked onto her sister as her voice took on a threating tone. "Rubes, I swear one of these days I'm going to shove that whistle up your…"

Weiss cleared her throat, silencing Yang from further threatening her girlfriend.

"Well then, now that you are both awake." She started as she unplugged her own ears. "You should be interested to know that Professor Ozpin is coming here and should be arriving at any moment!"

Blake sat up on the couch as she looked at Weiss. "Ozpin? But why is he coming here?"

"That doesn't matter! What matters is that he'll be here soon, potentially with our first job, and here you both are still in your pajamas!" Weiss was red faced after her outburst, her slender shoulder's rose up and down as she breathed deeply.

"Weiss…" Ruby started in an attempt to defuse her volatile girlfriend. It probably would have worked to, had the doorbell not rung.

"Oh dust he's here!" Weiss grabbed Ruby's hand as she bolted toward the door; she barked back at Blake as she rounded the corner and vanished from sight. "Blake take Yang and make yourselves presentable, we'll keep him busy!"

Blake shook her head. There never was a dull moment when Team RWBY was involved, and she wouldn't change that for the world.

"Blake," the girl turned at the sound of her name. She found Yang sitting on the floor staring at her with a mischievous glint in her eye.

Oh no…

"Did you call me, 'honey'?"

Why me?

AN: So, RL pretty well beat me over the head with a stick over the past week. Coupled with the fact that this chapter went through 4 complete rewrites...it took a while to get it to you. I do apologize for that. That said, we have finally arrived at the point in the story where things will start to kick off...I have some interesting things in store for our four heroines. Hopefully you guys will enjoy what is to come, though I will admit it now, it's not all sunshine and rainbows.

Also, I know that I rushed Blake and Yang's big talk...which is something that I'm kinda okay with but at the same time I hate myself for doing it. Hopefully it doesn't piss anyone off to bad.

And, like always thank you all for reading my horrendus writing. Please leave any and all criticisms that you might have for me in either a review or a PM I don't care which. I'm going to start responding to all of the reviews/PM's I get, yes even the ones I already have, so please drop me a line on how I can get better.

Have a good night!