There were things on Remnant that not all souls were strong enough to face and bear witness to. This house, what little was left of it, was proof that Sun had bet his whole life on one woman. He promised his future and the entirety of his being to her. The echoes of her loss had shattered him completely. Ruby lifted a photograph that had been left on the floor, broken glass shards scattering on the floor and in the frame.

Octavia Ember, as Ruby had known her back when they were students, had mated to Sun a little while after their graduation.

As all hunters do after graduation, they began traveling the world. Sometimes, dangerous missions kept them away from each other for long stretches, but they always reunited, happier than ever. Eventually though, Octavia was ready to settle down and Sun was happy to do the same. The long distance bounty and field missions were replaced. Nearby border patrols, currier missions, village refortifications, and standard scouting missions filling their line-up. Then Octavia became pregnant. A formal wedding followed soon after. Octavia took the last name Wukong and Zhu was born later that year.

All was looking bright and well for the family, until it just wasn't.

Ruby couldn't pinpoint it. The exact moment that everything went to hell in a handbag. Frankly, it was unexpected, and a shock. Being a huntress and a mother? That was hard work, dangerous work. If Ruby had placed her bets, she would have said a Grimm would kill Octavia. As hunters, they all had to be prepared for that. Sadly though, Octavia had beaten the odds, it wasn't a Grimm that killed her.

Illness did.

Ruby put the picture back up where it belonged, and ignored the pinprick of blood that trickled from her finger as she brushed it off on her pant leg. The cut hadn't even been felt, and was now entirely healed thanks to her aura. Ruby took a breath, she had someone else to be worried about.

"Come on, Sun." She said, scooping him up from his crumpled position, nose crinkling at the smell of vomit on his breath. "Up you go." If it was burning her nose, she didn't dare guess what it was doing to him. "Can you stand?"

"Ugh." Was his strangled reply before another stream of puke exited his mouth, splashing onto the floor. "Sorry." He slurred, as she grimaced at him, cleaning his mouth and chin with a nearby towel.

"Sun, no offense, but you kind of reek, and now you're covered in puke." She said. "Get into the shower." He nodded, stumbling forward, nearly tripping over the bathtub. "Sun!" She grabbed him, nearly toppling the both of them over as she tried to balance his unsteady weight. "Sun, I need you to focus. Pay attention to what you're doing." He nodded again, but wobbled the both of them back and forth as he did so. "I guess we have no choice…" She said as she put the toilet seat down. "You sit there, and don't move."

She turned on the shower, and started shucking her dirtied clothes off, leaving herself clad in only her sports bra and boy shorts, the standard thing she always wore, especially on missions. Then she went into the kitchen and grabbed a plastic chair, sticking it into the shower. "Sun…."

"Mmm?"

"Sun, I need you to look at me…"

"Uh-huh." He did look at her, and leaned over far enough he almost fell on his face. "Yeah. Kay. Lookin."

"Sun, you're covered in vomit and, there's dried blood in your hair…" She told him as pointedly as she could. Trying to maintain his attention, a war she was losing if his constant drooping was any indication. "Sun..."

"Hmm?"

"I don't think you can clean up on your own." She said already undoing the drawstring of his pajama pants. "I'm going to help you."

"I'm…" He struggled. "I'm good."

"Prove it then." she said, pulling back and holding up a few fingers. "Sun, how man fingers am I holding up."

"Dunno."

"Three." Ruby sighed. "Sun, I'm going to help you, but these need to come off."

He shook his head blearily. "Doesn't matter."

"It does matter. They will get wet in the shower, and you'd have to change anyway." She said evenly.

"Don't care."

Beside herself, she didn't think too deeply on his attitude. Dragging his pajamas down his legs, she pointedly looking away from his nudity. She'd always suspected he preferred going commando, but it wasn't something she dwelled on. "Uh, what are you doing?"

"Ruby." Sun said, as he leaned forward and squinted more carefully than he had been a moment ago. He had enough presence of mind to notice something about her just wasn't right. He couldn't put his finger on it at first. Then he figured it out, a horrified expression mixing with the drunken one. "I see tits! Your tits!"

Crimson red, she pushed beyond the obvious. "Sun! It's cold in Atlas! Just get into the shower, butthead." She demanded, dragging him up along with her and sat him down under the spray. The hot water made everything smell worse before it smelled better. She doused him in shampoo, scrubbing his hair and letting the suds fall all over him. The water washed everything away easily enough, and she didn't dare get a good look at him as she covered him in towels and dragged him over to his bed.

"Sun, where do you keep your pajamas?"

"Don't need." He mumbled again, still completely out of it. He awkwardly dragged the towels off of him and curled up in his bed.

"You are not laying there naked…"

No answer came.

"Sun?"

A strangled sob made her freeze, and she realized he was clutching a pillow. More importantly, it was Octavia's pillow.

Leaning against the wall, she slid down to the floor clad in her soaked underwear, droplets of water still falling from her hair. She wasn't one for cursing, not truly, but there was only one way she could possibly articulate her thoughts in that instant, the curse falling from her breath almost silently. "Shit..."