Here we go again...

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts"

Winston Churchill

Chapter Thirteen—A Talk long coming

"Jaune?" Jaune slumbered in the state somewhere between conscious and sleep. Some part of his brain heard the voice calling his name and blatantly ignored it. "Jaune," the voice called again. Jaune's muddled mind debated whether to answer it, then decided it was too much effort, and buried deeper into the refuge of sleep.

It had been three days. Three days since Jaune had fallen into the pit of despair. Three days since Jaune had simply stopped caring what happened to him. They'd continued walking south, because what else was there to do? But Jaune had long stopped hoping to reach Vale. The distance was simply too great. What chance did they have?

They'd been attacked along the way as well. Nothing as big as the Grimm hoard that had assaulted the Atlas outpost, but a few Grimm here and there had heard them and come investigating. Each time, the squad had beaten back the beasts, but each time it had taken just a little more ammo, just a little longer.

It was only a matter of time now.

That was why Jaune really didn't want to get up this morning. He didn't want to have to face another day of walking, of awkward silences between the squad, of Cat's accusing stares and Terry's worried glances. He didn't want to keep fighting when his mind had given up so completely.

Unfortunately, the voice had other ideas. "Jaune. Jaune. Comeon buddy. Wakeup." A hand began to rock Jaune's shoulder, gentle but insistent, shaking off the cobwebs of fatigue and steadfastly trapping Jaune in the land of the living. Jaune's mind mentally sighed, then slowly, ever so slowly, Jaune pushed his way through the treacle of sleep and dragged his body back to consciousness. His tired eyelids fluttered open, though it took several seconds for his eyes to focus on anything, and then several seconds more for his brain to comprehend the images they saw.

"Jaune," smiled Phillip, retracting his hand from Jaune's shoulder. "Are you awake? Wait, of course you are. Unless you sleep with your eyes open. Do you do that?" Jaune gave a non-committal grunt. "Right, you're awake. Sorry for doing that. I would have waited till you woke up, but you seemed to be sleeping in quite a bi-"

"Why did you wake me, Phil?" Jaune cut in.

"Oh, right, yeah. There was a reason. Is a reason. You know that task you set me?" Jaune stared blankly at the dark-haired, red-armoured man. "Finding Vale's frequency?" Phil prompted. Oh, that. Jaune had asked Phillip to try to retune the captured Atlas transmitter to whatever frequency the Valesian army was using. To be honest, Jaune had completely forgotten about that, and he was amazed that Phil had kept trying to fulfil Jaune's request. "Well, it took me a little longer than expected. I had to repair the transmitter. Then redesign it to broadcast and receive short distance radio waves. Then I didn't know if Vale were using VHF or UHF, AM or FM. I was basically going blin – I'm boring you, aren't I? Damnit, I keep getting side-tracked. It happens every time I talk about machines – well, never mind. The point is… I found it!" Phil looked to Jaune triumphantly.

He… he found it?

Slowly, something loosened in Jaune's chest from the knot it had been dormant in and began to unfurl itself. It raised its glimmering head a few inches, the terror of being proven wrong a restraining force pinning it down from anything more than the slightest action. Yet still its presence was felt throughout Jaune's whole body; an electric shiver that somehow revitalised his muscles in a way that no amount of sleep could ever accomplish.

Hope.

"Show me," was all Jaune said.

Thirty seconds later, Jaune ducked into Phillip's tent. The first thing he saw when he entered was the stolen transmitter, now merrily blasting out hisses and crackles of static which may have resembled garbled voices. The second thing he noticed was Cat, staring glumly at nothing. The moment he entered she snapped her eyes onto him, and her face morphed into a disgusted sneer. She rose stiffly, muttered a quick goodbye to Phil, then marched out of the tent, her nose upturned in distaste, without so much as regarding Jaune. Jaune let her go.

"Why was she here?" he asked Phil instead.

"What, Cat? Oh, she's been helping me retune the transmitter most nights. Or at least, partially. She's also been helping, uh, Naomi…" If Phil expected some sort of reaction from Jaune, he was disappointed. Jaune simply nodded and moved towards the transmitter. He wasn't ready to deal with Naomi yet. He wondered if he ever would be.

Phil hurried after Jaune to the transmitter and began babbling on about the technicalities and voice procedure of talking to the Valesian High Command. Jaune zoned most of it out, and when Phil realised he'd lost his one-man audience, he coughed awkwardly into his hand and hurriedly pulled the microphone piece towards himself.

"This is Sapper Phillip Blitz of Beta section, requesting to speak with Vale HQ. Can anyone hear me, over." The two men waited expectantly. This was it. Their best, and maybe only chance of getting out of this alive. It all depended on whether their transmission had been heard. If not… well, best to wait till it came to that to worry about it.

Jaune waited a moment for a response. And then another. And then another. Phil repeated his line again, but the little box remained stubbornly silent except for the crackling of static.

Jaune's shoulders drooped and his head fell. Of course they wouldn't reach the authorities. That would be too much to hope for. Why had he allowed himself to bel-

"Sapper Phillip Blitz, this is Vale HQ three," a voice, badly distorted and barely intelligible, grated out of the radio. "We read you loud and clear. Go ahead." Phil almost sagged with relief, and even Jaune's spirits rose. They'd been heard. They were no longer alone.

"HQ three, I have an important message to relay to the Valesian high command," said Phil. "Requesting permission to speak to Headquarters-actual, over."

"Affirmative, Sapper Blitz, wilco. Wait five, over and out." Phillip sat back looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

"Now what?" Jaune asked.

"Now we wait."

Approximately five minutes later, a new, gravelly voice rumbled from the transmitter, "Who is this?" From the tone of those three words alone, Jaune could tell he was listening to someone senior than himself. Much senior.

"Errr, it might be better if you talk to this guy. Y'know, cause you're the leader an' all…" Before Jaune could even muster the energy to argue, the microphone was swiftly dropped into his hand, condemning Jaune to what was bound to be an unpleasant conversation. Great.

"What am I meant to do with this?" he hissed.

"Tell him your rank and squadron, then ask him for aid."

"This is Sergeant Arc of Beta section, over," droned Jaune, mimicking the language Phil had used earlier.

"Beta section?" demanded the gruff voice. "Our records say that section went MIA a week ago." A questioning glance at Phil.

"Missing in action," Phillip answered Jaune's implied question.

"We were, sir. We were ambushed on a training exercise and forced to flee into the woods. We're stranded in the forest somewhere to the North of Vale and we need immediate rescue." A pause. "Over." There. It was done. They'd finally managed to reach someone who could actually help them. This man, whoever he was, could trace their radio signal and send a bullhead to pick them up. The little coil in his chest untwisted itself even further, sensing the ray of light the little transmitter offered and reaching for it like a growing sapling. They weren't going to die in the woods. They were going to survive. They were going ho—

"Negative."

Jaune's heart froze. That couldn't be right. Jaune must be confusing his radio codes. Or maybe he'd only received half the message, and that the other half had been lost in transmission.

"Sorry sir, I think I missed your last transmission. Say again."

"Negative soldier. We can't afford to spare the manpower for a search and retrieval of a single section. We will not be rescuing you."

Jaune's heart started, missed a beat, stopped, then shuddered into motion again. "You must have misheard me, sir," he said, trying to keep his voice level, even if it was taking every ounce of his willpower not to scream into the mic. "My section and I are alone in the woods with limited supplies. We can't last long out here. We need immediate recovery."

"Perhaps you, misheard me, soldier," the voice seemed to sneer. "Negative. We cannot spare the resources. You're on your own."

No. No, no, no, this couldn't be happening.

"Sir," he gritted out, teeth clenched, "there are ni – eight soldiers in my squadron. If we do not receive aid, we will all die."

"This is war, soldier," the voice stated calmly. Far too calmly. "Soldiers die. That is your job. Do you think you are the only section to have gotten lost in this damn invasion?" Jaune hadn't thought of that. "There is a large base to the North, as yet holding the line against Atlas. The coordinates are 13 degrees 12 minutes north, 4 degrees 36 minutes east. If you make your own way there, they can resupply your section and give you new orders. But that is all the aid you will be receiving."

"No, no sir, you don't understand," Jaune pleaded. "We have no idea where we are. There are enemy soldiers and Grimm in this forest. We won't survive the trek to this base."

"Then that is your problem, soldier."

A hot, unexpected anger suddenly burnt through Jaune's veins. "You would allow eight good soldiers to die because you refused to help them?" he demanded.

"I have thousands of soldiers under my command, boy," the man shot back, equally hot. "I will not risk any more of them or their equipment to save the handful of men you have. You must get out of your problems yourselves."

"And if we fail," Jaune growled.

"I can afford to lose eight soldiers," the man replied, his tone frozen. "You are on your own. Over and out."

Jaune gripped the microphone so hard he was afraid it would shatter. "Sir. Sir! Come in! Answer me!" Nothing but cold static was his answer. "Dammit!" he screamed, hurling the microphone down. He would have kicked the transmitter if Phil hadn't leapt to his feet and snatched up his precious machine.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he yelped, cradling the transmitter to his chest like a new-born baby. "Easy Jaune! We might still need this!"

"Damnit, Phil, didn't you hear him?" Jaune demanded, his blood still boiling. "There's no help coming. They've abandoned us to die!"

"Hey, easy there. I know. I heard."

Jaune slumped to the ground, suddenly finding his limbs too heavy to keep up. The thing that had been building in his chest flickered and choked, before sputtering out of existence as it was swallowed up by the darkness that swept back in to claim Jaune. The despair he'd been able to ignore for the last few minutes slammed back into him, so hard he reeled, as if it were desperate to make up the time it had lost. Jaune felt his emotions shrivel up under the black smog that clogged every vein and artery in his body. There was no reason to keep fighting. It was hopeless. It always had been. When would he learn this?

"What do we do, Sarge?" Phillip asked. No, begged. He was terrified and was looking to his leader for strength. Strength that Jaune couldn't provide.

"Do whatever you want," he heard himself say through a million-mile tunnel. "I'm going back to bed."

Silence. It invaded the tent and smothered the two men, stifling anything Phil might have tried to say. Instead he simply gawked at Jaune, as if unable to accept that the belief he'd held that Jaune was a good leader was false, as if he couldn't believe that all Jaune had ever been was a lie. A fantasy. A dream. But like all dreams, this delusion couldn't have lasted.

Slowly, Jaune struggled to his feet and plodded over to exit the tent, leaving the flabbergasted Phillip behind. But just as he reached the entrance, a voice held him back.

"So that's it? You're just giving up?" Phil challenged.

"I gave up three days ago, Phil," Jaune tiredly explained. "I'm just catching up to that decision."

"What about surviving? What about getting home? Don't you care about any of that? Aren't you at least going to try to make it?"

"What's the point? There's nothing for me in Vale. No one would miss me." Jaune turned his back on his friend and reached for the flap.

"That's not true," Phil tried. "I know you went to Beacon. What about your friends there? What about your team? They'll miss you."

Jaune became very still very suddenly, his hand still outstretched towards the tent flap. He clenched his eyes shut and counted to ten. When he opened them again, his voice was steady and his words impassive. "They won't miss me. They probably hate me."

"That's not true," Phil countered. "Teams are closer than family. They'll be devastated if you die."

"You're wrong," Jaune gritted out. "You have no idea what happened between us." So stop poking he didn't say.

"Then tell me," begged Phil. "Maybe I can help you with it. Your friends still want to see you again Jaune, no matter what you say."

Help him? Help him? What the hell did Phillip know about what Jaune was going through? Jaune didn't want to be helped, damnit, he wanted to be punished. Hated. Maybe that would make the spear of guilt in his heart hurt a little less.

A white spike of anger pierced the black cloud within him and Jaune latched onto it, suddenly wanting, needing to yell at someone. Anyone. He was sick of everyone thinking he was such a saint. Sick of people thinking he needed help, like some fairy tale princess stuck in a tower, needing to be rescued. Sick of himself. He wanted to reveal everything he'd done, just so someone else could see him for what he really was and hate him for it.

"What do you know anyway?!" he exploded. "You graduated Beacon just fine. You probably never got into anything worse than a minor disagreement with your team. You probably still feel fine showing your face to your friends. Well I don't! I betrayed them. I went behind their backs and hurt one of them, and I knew exactly what I was doing as I did it!" Jaune felt two, hot tears prick his eyes, then slowly wend their way over the contorts of his face before dripping off his chin and shattering on the ground. He made no move to wipe their trails away. "They were the best people I ever knew. Enthusiastic. Kind. Calm. They were my friends. And I… I…" Jaune couldn't go on. The bandage he'd so carefully placed was being savagely yanked off and the wound he'd tried so hard to close was tearing open; raw and savage and bloody and oh so painful.

In an instant, everything Jaune had ever done with his team, every meal they'd eaten together, every laugh they'd ever shared, every kind word and helping hand they'd ever offered each other came spinning through his mind like a hurricane. It turned out he'd been wrong: anger wasn't the only emotion he could still feel. Because right now he felt every ounce of pain and regret and useless desire to go back in time and change what he'd done lance through his body at once, a thousand knives slicing and jabbing and cutting away at Jaune, leaving him full of tiny holes that could never, ever, ever be filled and all because of one moment of stupidity, one moment of weakness that had stolen away everything he'd ever loved and oh god it hurt hurt hurt.

"They're better off without me," he croaked, his throat raw. "They'll be happier that way." He finally paused, waiting for Phillip's judgement, his condemnation.

"Bullshit." Jaune actually staggered at the uncharacteristic swear Phil had used, and even more so at the unexpected anger that blazed behind his eyes.

"Wha—?"

"Bullshit," Phil stoutly growled. "You think you're saving them from pain, but you're not. You think you're doing them a favour, well the hell with that idea."

Jaune shook his head. "I threw a jar of tree sap at my partner, knowing full well a swarm of rapier wasps was going to attack her." Why was Phil so adamant that Jaune hadn't done wrong, when he so clearly had? He must have been trying to make him feel better. That was the only logical explanation for it. "They should hate me for what I did."

"They should." That made Jaune pause. "But what they should do, and what they will do are two completely different things. That's what you're forgetting, Jaune. You're family to them. And even if they might hate what you did, they still love you. And staying away from them will only hurt them more."

Jaune swayed on his feet, feeling nauseous. "What do you know?" he finally accused.

"Because I was in your situation too," sighed Phillip. He sat down heavily on the floor and seemed to age a hundred years in seconds. "I had a team at Beacon too. And it wasn't all dandy sunshine and picnics. We argued constantly. We fought even more regularly. But I still loved them all." Phillip's eyes glazed over, some memory only he could see playing out before his eyes. "Even when things fell apart."

Jaune hovered uncertainly by the tent entrance. He wanted to leave. Every muscle in his body strained to be out of this suffocating tent where too much had already been said. But something about the way Phil looked as he sat hunched on the ground, about the way he talked, as if frightened of falling into the yawning chasm of sorrow that remained ever-present behind everything he said, kept Jaune rooted to the spot. He knew that look, and the way Phil spoke. He'd seen and heard it in himself. "What happened?" he asked cautiously.

"One of my teammates," began Phil, "Ralph, he… he did something he shouldn't have. In our final year at Beacon, around the time of the Vytal festival, he began meeting with a criminal. Only, this criminal turned out to be his father. I don't know too much of the story. He didn't tell any of us. But our leader, Bea, she found out. She… was actually my sister," Phil admitted. "She confronted him. Demanded to know what he was doing. He played dumb. Bad move. There was a lot of shouting. Like, a lot a lot. Bea called Ralph a traitor. Said he was siding with the enemy. Other stuff too. Worse stuff.

"The problem might have sorted itself out, but somehow, General Ironwood found out." A drop of bitterness oozed into Phil's voice at this. "He wanted to ask Ralph a few questions, or so he claimed. Ralph, he… he didn't like to be cornered like that. He was paranoid about that kind of thing. Probably feared the worst. When he heard Ironwood was looking for him, he scrammed. Fled Beacon before we could stop him.

"The last member of our team, Opal, wanted to go looking for him. Bea refused. In the end, she went on her own." Phil's voice had taken on a slight wobble, and his throated bobbed as he recounted his story. "She came back a day later in tears. Said she'd searched the whole of Vale and hadn't found a trace of him. In the end, she'd finally gone to the docks. There, she'd learnt he'd bought a ticket on a small boat out of Vale not too long ago. But by the time she'd got there, Ralph… Ralph was gone. That was the last time we ever heard from him." Phillip's breathing had become laboured and uneven, each inhale seeming to send a spasm of pain through his face. "Opal had begged and begged me to go with her to look for Ralph. But I… I didn't go. Maybe if I had, we would have found him before he left. Convinced him to come back. It was my fault. But I was still mad at him. I'd sided with Bea during the fight. Of course I had. She was my sister! What else was I supposed to have done?" Phil looked to Jaune, his eyes pleading, and Jaune realised with a start that Phil wasn't just telling his story; he was giving a confession. Begging Jaune for a forgiveness that he couldn't give.

Phillip closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nostrils, his breath hitching every few inhales. Jaune had no idea what to do. He stood there, feeling utterly useless, unable to comfort even one of his closest friends. In the end, he awkwardly sat himself down next to Phil, hoping his presence alone would offer Phil the support he needed.

After a while, Phillip's breathing came back under control, and he continued his story. "After Ralph left, our team fell apart. Opal never forgave me for what I did. Or didn't do. I don't even blame her for it. She left Beacon a few weeks later. That left just me and Bea. It was a shambles. We were a two-man team in the final year of Beacon. We eventually graduated, but more out of pity from the teachers, I think." Phil gave a brittle chuckle. "Look at me. Blabbering on again about myself. I did say I liked to ramble." He sighed deeply, and the two of them lapsed into silence.

"Jaune," Phil finally went on, "even after going behind our backs like that, we still loved Ralph. Even Bea. But when he left like he did, without a word of goodbye, it tore us apart. Him abandoning us hurt more than anything else he could have possibly done to us. Please, Jaune, I'm begging you: don't do the same to your team."

"How?" implored Jaune meekly. "How can I face them again? What do I even say?"

"That's for you to decide. You can try to cut yourself off from them. You can claim it's for their own good. But you're just being selfish. Taking the easy way out for your mistakes. Punishment is easy, Jaune. Too easy. Redemption though – now there's the real challenge."

Jaune fell silent. He didn't reply when Phil eventually got up and excused himself. He didn't move when Phil left the tent. He didn't react as the other members of Beta section began moving around outside, getting reader to attack another day. He was too deep in thought.

Finally, after an age of contemplation, Jaune rose to his feet. Nothing had changed of their position. They were still stuck in a hostile forest. They'd still been abandoned by their own army. But somehow, something felt different as Jaune stepped blinking into the morning light. It took him a few more minutes to realise what it was. That little glowing presence in his chest wasn't there anymore.

Because it was everywhere else in his body.

His limbs shook off their dusty fatigue. His eyes burnt with a determination he thought he'd lost. He legs carried his body with purposeful strides. Their situation hadn't changed. But Jaune had. Because for the first time since this whole madness had begun, Jaune had a reason to fight on; not an aimless, generic reason to not fail, or to not let Sarge down, but a meaningful, personal one worth the risks of failure. Jaune needed to get home…

…because Jaune needed to apologise to his team.

Yes! Part 2 of this story is completed. Cue seamless inclusion of the rest of the RWBY cast. You guys have been asking if team NPR would be making an appearance since, like, chapter 2, so I am pleased to finally give Jaune the good kick up the backside he needed and a shove in his friends' direction. Who would have thought it would have been Phillip of all people to give Jaune the much needed one-to-one pep talk? Well I did, but that's besides the point...

So yes, team NPR at least will be making a reappearance at some point, though fair warning, Jaune's not out of the woods yet: literally! It's still going to be a while until Beta section make it home and Jaune gets a chance to reunite with his team. You guys might be wondering why I've locked so closely on Beta section these last few chapters and have completely ignored anything to do with the characters at Beacon, Commander Beatrice Blitz, or the villains, but trust me, that's 100% intentional. I included those earlier chapters in Atlas so you guys would understand what's happening, but now I am intentionally keeping you guys in the dark in exactly the same way that Beta section are more or less clueless about what's going on. Until this chapter, they didn't even know if Vale was still standing, and there was no way to tell how the war was going. In war, soldiers are very often kept on a strict need-to-know basis, and I wanted to mimic that for you guys, so you'd almost be able to get a taste for what it's like to be the lowly soldier on the ground, without a clue what your higher-ups are planning for your fate and with no way of getting information on the larger scale conflict.

In other news, I am so pleased that Jaune if finally out of his slump. That was not fun to write about, believe me. I love my precious Jaune Arc, hence why I've kept his lowest point relatively short, though it probably felt longer for you guys who have to wait a fortnight between chapters. Worry not, although Jaune's problems are far from over, things won't be as bad in future as they have been. At least for a while. Probably. Maybe.

Anyway, don't forget to like, share and subscri - wait, wrong platform. Just read and review or whatever...