There was a noise. Yang ignored it. It happened again, and this time there was a voice alongside it. "Yang, open up."
Yang looked up. The figure at the window looked like Blake. She rubbed her eyes. "Blake? What are you doing there? Wait..." She shook her head in confusion. "Are you even real?"
"Yang, I climbed up the side of the building to talk to you. I have a shadow clone down at the bottom trying to look casual, but it won't last much longer. Now let me in."
Yang got up and opened the window. She reached out a hand, but Blake flinched away. "What happened?" Yang asked. "They wouldn't let you in?" The reality sank in just a little deeper. "Blake, I have armed guards at the door. What is going on?"
"I wanted to ask you that." Blake said. She hopped in through the window and went to stand in the middle of the room, far away from Yang. "What were you thinking?"
"What was I thinking?" Yang asked. She could feel tears in her eyes. She fought hard not to wipe them away. "He attacked me after the fight was over!"
"That's not what I saw." Blake said coldly. "That's not what anyone else saw either."
Now the tears were coming. "Blake..." Yang whispered.
Blake swallowed. "You know about Adam." she said. "You know what happened. I need you to promise me that Mercury attacked you first."
"I know what I saw Blake!" Yang hiccuped. She grimaced, then shook her head angrily. "I've been looking at the footage and...and it doesn't make sense. I-"
"Promise me." Blake could feel her resolve weakening, even though she knew she shouldn't let it. "Please."
Yang took several deep breaths. They didn't help much. "I ppppromise." she stammered.
They looked at each other for a long, long moment. "All right." Blake said at last. The weight shifted on the two girls' shoulders. Yang sighed and sat down on the bed. Though her eyes were looking down, Blake could tell Yang was still trying not to cry. She walked over to her, and as she did, Yang's body language changed. There was some firmness in the way she held her shoulders now, but Blake knew it wouldn't last. She knelt down beside her and asked quietly, "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not really." Yang said. "I just...I just want to forget it happened, you know? But there are guards outside my door, and they're not letting my own teammates in, and..."
Blake put her arms around her, and Yang, the strongest woman in her life, broke. Blake remembered how Yang had cried several months ago after the Breach. This was not like that. Her tears that night had been subdued by comparison. Now her body was wracked by sobs so powerful she couldn't even give voice to them, tears running down her face and onto Blake's back. Yang felt guilty for getting Blake wet again on top of everything else, and she tried to say she was sorry, but her throat felt like it was closing up and she couldn't seem to get the words out. Blake was trying not to cry as well, because someone had to be strong for them, but her back was hurting from leaning in the way she was, so she had to tell Yang, "Hold on a second." She stood up, with Yang still clinging to her, and sat down on the bed beside her, pulling her close again to their joint relief. "I feel like something is coming." she said, and only time would give her words the weight they deserved. "And I can't stop it. I don't know why or what it is. All I can do is just hold you." She hugged Yang tighter. "And it'll have to do." she said, and a tear slipped out of her eye.
"Can I kiss you?" Yang asked, looking up, a desperate plea and a longing in her voice and her eyes, made all the more raw by the pain with which she spoke, her throat ragged like her nerves.
"Please." Blake whispered.
Their lips and tears and noses met in desperation. Hands clutched and clawed at places they hadn't dared before. Blake found herself lying back on the bed as Yang rained searing kisses upon her lips and face. "You're so beautiful Blake." Yang breathed as she moved down to Blake's neck.
"Mmm..." Blake sighed. "You are too Yang..." Nevertheless she grabbed Yang lightly by the wrist as her hands wandered a little too far and began unbuttoning Blake's vest. She shook her head, trying not to let on how much her body wanted it even as she felt panic rising in her gut. Her wounds from Adam were still too raw.
"But-" Yang bit her lip. "No, you're right."
"We're not ready for that." Blake said softly.
"I'm sorry." Yang flushed red. "I got carried away."
She looked as though she was about to cry again, so Blake let go of her wrist and put a hand on the side of her face. "You're allowed." she said. "So long as you know when to stop."
"Which is never according to that footage." Yang looked away, her brow furrowed.
Blake drew her in close once more. "You don't have to think about that right now." she murmured. "Get some rest."
Eventually they did, lulled to sleep by the beating of the other's heart and the warmth of their skin and the melancholy sound of Anticipation that came in over the intercom, as if the station manager shared their fears. "We can never know about the days to come, but we think about them anyway. And I wonder if I'm really with you now. Or just chasing after some finer day…"
They were hunters in training, being taught to seek out monsters and destroy them for the good of humans and faunus alike. What was not taught, but what was learned regardless, was that sometimes monsters seek them out in turn.
The end began in fire and flames. And pain. He beat her down with ease, the words she'd been running from for so long driving deep into her soul again and again. Useless. Betrayal. And worst of all, love.
Then he stabbed her twice, once in the stomach and once in the heart. He always knew how to hurt, she would reflect later. That was something that had never changed. So when Yang arrived, he did what he did best. He hurt.
Yang was trying to be her knight in shining armor. But some swords are made to cut through shining armor, and his did just that. Her right arm was severed in an instant, her aura depleted in even less than that. She hit the ground and rolled. Blake was screaming inside her head. In all likelihood, she hadn't stopped since.
"Look after her," she'd told Sun when he found her. "She's stronger than she thinks, but-" She cut herself off and ran.
Yang didn't say a word for months. They all tried to get her to talk: her uncle, her father, her sister, her dog, even Sun in his way. Nothing. Then her sister left, traveling to Haven with Ren and Nora and Jaune. She always found it difficult to sit and wait, something that Yang had once thought they had in common. Then her uncle left. Soon it felt like the world was leaving her behind, discarding her broken body and spirit once it had taken all it could.
But she would cry. She would mourn. She would remember all she had ever lost.
And through this, she would begin to heal.
Author's Note: That got dark quickly, huh? Much like the series itself.
This series isn't done either. I plan to have a story about Yang beginning to recover, and then a story set in a vague future period after Volume 4 which features a trope that I'm seeing a lot in fanfiction these days: resurrection.
The last two lines are paraphrasing Dr. Calixto Narváez's statement at the end of SCP-2737's documentation, which is a fantastic and oddly inspiring read. I hope this read inspired you too.