"The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war"

Douglas MacArthur

Chapter Eight—Aftermath

The rest of the day stretched out before Jaune like an unravelling King Taijitu into one, long, weary march. Jaune had never been particularly fit, and although his brief-but-brutal military training helped somewhat, the long walk plus the emotional beating Jaune had received that day left him utterly drained. The events of the day were straining to collapse down on him, but he pushed back against them incessantly. He didn't want to stop and think about what had happened. How, in the space of 10 minutes, his entire life had turned on its head a second time. How the explosion of the bullhead had vaporised those inside and left clawing torched husks of human bodies around it, any one of which might have been Jaune. How Ash, the man who had seemed so cold at first, but who had in the end been the one to save his life from his own stupidity, had looked when he ran into the woods and sacrificed himself to save them all. How Sergeant Cole had lay, his life bleeding from his body before Jaune's very eyes, powerless to do anything to save his leader.

All these things hung poised above Jaune's head, threatening to smash down onto him with the weight of a tsunami and drown him in the horrors he'd seen. Jaune knew that if he opened the gates even a fraction to consider what he'd seen, the rest would come crashing through, and he'd never staunch the flood.

So he locked those treacherous memories behind an immovable mental block. One day, he'd face those demons. But not right now. For now, he focused everything he had on walking, ignoring his blistering feet and his exhausted legs, one foot in front of the other, left, right, left, right, stumble, catch, left, right, left. If he kept forcing his body to move underneath him, maybe that would be enough to keep his treacherous thoughts at bay.

"Nicely done back there." Jaune almost leapt out of his skin when a voice materialized next to him. The first thing he saw when he whirled around was shockingly blue, spiky hair and soft, brown eyes. Jaune relaxed marginally. Just Naomi.

"What do you mean?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

"I mean what you did about Finn," she explained, "stepping in there when Bounty was having a go at him, sorting the problem out, keeping the squad together. Spoken like a true leader. Not to mention the fact that it was uncharacteristically brave of you," Naomi said with a roguish grin, "you almost convinced even me that you knew what you were doing."

Uncharacteristically? Despite himself, a smile tugged at the corner of Jaune's mouth. "Almost?" he asked instead.

"Your voice was smooth, but your eyes were too restless, too jumpy. You were clearly far from comfortable with the situation. You should probably work on not doing that in the future."

"Duly noted," replied Jaune.

The two of them lapsed into comfortable silence. Jaune thought about what Naomi had said. Had he really spoken like a true leader? Had he really been brave? Actually, Jaune had been pretty terrified at the time, not least because Bounty was twice his weight, several times his age and mad enough that Jaune wouldn't put anything past him. If Bounty had stood his ground, Jaune didn't know what he'd have done.

"So why did you bother stepping in for Finn?" Naomi questioned, "no one would have held it against you if you hadn't helped the cowardly sod after he ditched us like that." Jaune sighed, and looked back at Finnegan. The dark-skinned man was slouched and grumbling as he walked, the poster boy of misery. Behind him came Cat, a rifle carried loosely (though not too loosely) in her hands and pointed in the vague direction of Finnegan's back. No one had trusted Finn with a gun, but Cat still insisted on playing the guard of Finn. Or slave-driver of Finn, depending on whose perspective it was.

"I don't really know," he answered truthfully, "I guess when I saw Bounty punching him, I don't know, it just seemed so… twisted to me. Wasn't Finn meant to be the bad guy for betraying us? But what Bounty was doing to him… beating up a defenceless person like that… it was wrong. Even after everything Finn's done to us, I didn't want to see that happen to him. To anyone really," Jaune gave a dry chuckle, "I guess you could say I've had a few bad run-ins with bullies."

Naomi inspected Jaune up and down. "You don't say," she noted.

The two fell quiet again, the silence only punctuated by laboured breaths and snapping twigs on the forest floor. Jaune knew that they should really walk in silence. Everyone was painfully aware of how exposed they were, and none of them wanted to encourage anymore misfortune by calling the Grimm down on them. But talking to Naomi helped keep Jaune's mind off other, darker things.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"Of what?"

"Where we are, our situation, what we're doing."

"I think we're pretty screwed," Naomi concluded. Jaune sighed. "But I think there's hope for us yet." Naomi gripped Jaune's arm and made him turn so he was staring straight into her brown eyes. "Look, Jaune. I know you don't have much confidence-"

"What makes you say that?" Jaune asked indignantly. Naomi just gave him that do-you-really-want-me-to-answer-that? look and with a vague hand gesture indicated his entire body. "Alright, fair enough," he conceded, his trusty dignity crumbing once again.

"But I honestly think you're the best chance we have of getting out of this alive," Naomi continued, making Jaune look up at her sharply. "You're something that's increasingly rare these days, Jaune. You're a good person. You're willing to stand up for what's right. What you did with Finn proves that. That makes people willing to trust you, to follow you. Good leaders should all be good people at heart, I think."

Jaune broke his gaze with Naomi. "You're wrong," he muttered, unable to look at her, "I'm not a good person. I've done selfish things before."

"We all have, Jaune," exasperated Naomi, "we all slip up every now and then. Sometimes, at worse occasions than others. That doesn't make you a bad person, only human. Look, Jaune, I'm not going to lie; being a good person isn't the only criteria for being a good leader; not by a long shot. But it's a good start. And you are a good person."

Jaune was stunned by the surety of Naomi's words. How could she claim to know so much about him after only meeting him for the first time a little over a week ago? And how could he have what it took to be a good leader after his first attempt had gone so disastrously?

"Ok," continued Naomi, "I can tell you're not convinced, so let me put it this way. This squad trusts you to lead them. I trust you. So you can either mope around complaining about your lot in life, or you can stop doubting yourself and get on with it." Naomi stopped walking and looked back at the trailing convoy of soldiers behind them. "This squad needs a great leader, Jaune." She turned back to face him. "And I believe that can be you. You need to believe that too."

They trusted him.

Jaune was sitting in his command tent pondering over his conversation with Naomi earlier. Of course, 'command tent' was a grossly flattering term for what Jaune really had. In reality, it was a sheet of tarpaulin pulled between two trees. Being the squad sergeant had earned him the right to the only sheet of tarp they had. Everyone else was forced to lie in an all-round defence of their position, cold, frightened, and miserable. Jaune sighed. He didn't imagine anyone would be getting much sleep tonight. Terry had apparently decided to instate himself as Jaune's unofficial second in command, and was sitting a little way off, guarding the entrance to Jaune's makeshift shelter. The entrance, of course, being an entire wall open to the elements. Jaune was too deep in thought to argue.

They really trusted him, at least according to Naomi. The thought terrified Jaune. He was now responsible, whether he liked it or not, for the lives of everyone in Beta section. Talk about a heavy burden.

He sighed. He could tell himself however much he wanted that he wasn't ready for this, and he was probably right. But it didn't matter. At the end of the day he was in charge of Beta section, and no amount of whining would change his predicament, of that Naomi had been right for sure. "This squad needs a great leader, Jaune. And I believe that can be you." Ruby had said a similar thing to him once, a lifetime ago. He'd failed to listen to her then, and he'd lost everything he'd loved. He wouldn't make the same mistake here. Buzz, Phil, Bounty, Finn, Terry, Cat, Naomi, they were all relying on him to get them out of this mess. And by Oum he would.

First things first, Jaune needed to make sure they could survive the trip home. That meant surviving Grimm, exposure, and Atlesian soldiers. During their trek they'd seen several of their bullheads flying overhead. Each time that occurred they would scramble under what cover the trees provided and wait with bated breath for the airships to pass by. Whatever Atlas was doing, it was big. Jaune's stomach roiled at the thought of what their presence in Vale meant, but he pushed those thoughts aside. He had to focus on the immediate matters at hand. Maybe later when they were safely back home he could have the luxury to ponder on what heavily armoured foreign soldiers were doing attacking military outposts.

For now though, the enemy soldiers didn't seem like the biggest threat to Jaune. Exposure was. They were pitifully short on both food and water, and there was no way their meagre supplies would last the whole journey back to Vale. Jaune had to find a way to get more. Jaune supposed they could always find water from natural sources, and if they needed food they could hunt for it. But they'd have nothing to purify the water with, and Jaune doubted any of them would be much use hunting wildlife. Besides, they only had so much ammo, and shooting might only attract the Grimm. Plus, Jaune didn't feel comfortable sending out scavenging parties. There was too much that could go wrong, not least of all getting lost. There had to be another way.

Just then, Jaune noticed the electric whirring that he had come to dread. A bullhead. Jaune crouched down, though he needn't have with the camouflaged tarpaulin over him, and he saw the rest of his squad do the same.

The bullhead came screeching by overhead, its belly skimming the tops of the trees. Jaune clutched his weapon, visions of silent assassins dropping down from the vehicle to slaughter his squad flashing through his mind. The next moment the bullhead was gone, ignorant of how close it had come to scraping the tops of their heads. Jaune felt a collective sigh of relief pass throughout the temporary camp.

Come to think of it, why were there so many bullheads in these areas. Jaune didn't know much about airships, but he couldn't imagine that they'd have that large of a fuel tank. They couldn't be going back to Atlas every time they ran out. They must have been getting refuelled from somewhere nearby. That meant that there must be some kind of refuelling depot or forward base nearby. And a forward base would need to have ground troops to protect it from Grimm and humans alike. Ground troops who would need to be fed and equipped.

The first seeds of an idea were taking root in Jaune's brain and beginning to blossom into a plan.

Wow, ok, slightly shorter chapter this time, sorry for that guys. I might have been able to stuff in some more random character interactions, but it just really wasn't needed, and would have been redundant. I'll make sure next chapter is extra long to make up for this chapter's length.

Oh yeah, happy 2018 everyone! Hope you all had fun. My new year's resolution this time was simply to finish this story, so here's to a good year of fanfiction writing.

Anyway, I'm writing this just hours after returning from a trip to the United States, and am completely jet-lagged. Once I'm done with this I'm gonna sleep like a log. Ok, peace out guys.