New Beginnings
The bell clinked as the door swung open, Ruby stepped through and heaved a sigh of relief at the warmth of the café. It sure beat being out in the freezing cold outside.
"Good morning, we're not open yet but you're welcome to have a seat anywhere you-oh it's you, morning Crater Face," Jaune greeted when he noticed it was Ruby instead of a prospective customer. "I thought you'd be in the office by now."
"Eh, got today off." Ruby plopped herself down at an empty seat and slumped over the table groaning. "It's impossible, I don't understand how people deal with so much paperwork every day, it's crazy."
"I mean Weiss doesn't have any problem with it," Jaune replied with a chuckle at Ruby's expense.
"But it's Weiss, she actually likes doing paperwork," Ruby grunted in annoyance. "Come on, she's the CEO of the Schnee Corp, can't she give her lovely wife an easier job, like get coffee or something."
"Uh… I think I recall something about you uh… being bored without a proper job? I think?" Jaune frowned and scratched his head, working to reconcile the two sets of memories in his mind. "Besides, don't you have the experience of your other self, it's gotta help somewhat."
"Yessss… I do remember that," Ruby hissed and scratched her hair in frustration, what had her other self been thinking anyways? Clearly she'd thrown herself into her job the same way she'd thrown herself into being a huntress. "Maybe I should resign… but then Weiss will be stuck in the office and I can't see her."
"Well, there's no harm in asking if Weiss can just transfer you to being her PA or something. She is the boss." Jaune helpfully pointed out.
"Eh. Maybe I'll go talk to her about it, what about you?" Ruby lifted her head to watch Jaune pour out a cup of coffee and start adding a bunch of sugar cubes in, just the way she liked it. "Getting used to running this place yet?"
"Ah, haven't messed up a customer order in about two weeks, so I'm improving, I guess." Jaune shrugged. "Still feels weird sometimes. To be honest, part of me still thinks it's all an illusion and I'm going to wake up to a nightmare soon."
"Yeah," Ruby commiserated. It'd been about a month since the 'Shift', one day they'd all been in Vacuo preparing for Salem's next attack, and the next, there were… here, in whatever world this was. The moon was whole, cities were bigger and taller than anything on Remnant, and there was no Grimm, no Salem, no magic, none of that. Far as any of them could tell, aura didn't even exist in the world, the eight of them, they were the only ones who still had their auras and semblances.
The transition had been jarring to say the least, from huddling around a table covered in maps to suddenly being scattered across the new world, separate from each other. Fortunately, they had memories and experiences of another life lived in this world to help ease the transition.
It'd taken awhile and a good bit of panic, but there were some constants across the worlds, like all of them having gone to Beacon together, a university now instead of huntsman academy, and kept in touch through scrolls, sorry phones. Linking up had been a pain but it was done in the end and with no Grimm, no Salem, no relics and no Oz around, there hadn't been much to do except acclimatize to the lives they'd evidently always lived.
"Do you ever miss the old days Jaune?" Ruby asked.
"…I'd be lying if I said no." Jaune replied after a moment's silence. "You know me Ruby, I've always wanted to be a hero, fight the good fight. Now, this is a world that doesn't need heroes anymore. It's a bit disappointing that I can't fulfil that dream, but you know, it's peaceful here. Heroes are born out of tragedy, and I'm not selfish enough to wish for disasters so I can play hero."
"Yeah, this is… the world we've always fought for, isn't it? Now that we've just… arrived, I feel out of place. Instead of fighting Grimm and saving people, I'm crunching numbers on a spreadsheet for Weiss." Ruby sighed and gratefully accepted the steaming cup of coffee from Jaune, the sugary goodness doing its part to lift her mood. "But not being a hero anymore… I don't know about that one Mr Huntsman.
"I didn't do nothing, I didn't see nothing, and this speech has not been rehearsed." Jaune rattled off in a monotone, getting Ruby to snicker.
"Right, I'm sure that masked blonde in the news who's going around beating up criminals and rescuing old ladies from burning buildings is definitely someone I don't know." Ruby rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "I still can't believe Pyrrha isn't stopping you from going out in that lame disguise."
"Hey it's not lame! I put a lot of work into that!" Jaune denied hotly and then facepalmed when Ruby's grin widened.
"Gotcha!"
"Haha, very funny Ruby. Besides, my costume is still better than Pyr's Red Huntress!" Jaune protested. Now, there was another upside to the Shift, Pyrrha was not dead in this world, although she did remember everything up to her murder which still occasionally sent her into panic attacks.
"By the way Jaune, after you and Pyrrha stopped that bank robbery the other day and ran off via the rooftops. I heard there were some ah… interesting noise complaints from one block of flats afterwards, know anything about that?" Ruby waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Jaune immediately flushed bright red and started sputtering incoherently, choking on air. "I deny everything, you have no proof! Pyrrha and I weren't-oh god damnit!"
"Thanks for admitting it," Ruby snickered.
"Ugh, when did you become worse than Yang?" Jaune grumbled and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"So other me used to love hanging out with the gossips for stories, guess some of it rubbed off," Ruby replied. "When's the wedding by the way? I already missed my own with Weiss and Ren and Nora's, I'm not missing another."
"Eh… we're still working out the dates, Pyr's a superstar no matter what world, her schedule's pretty tight. Upside is, I run this café, I can take off whenever I want, so we just need to find a period when she's free and we're golden," Jaune said.
"Right, lemme know when you have a date set, Weiss will set everything up," Ruby replied. "Just between us, I think she's going a little stir crazy since Blake and Yang won't let her in on what they're planning."
"As long as it's kept simple, we just want a small ceremony." Jaune narrowed his eyes at an innocently whistling Ruby. "And that's simple and small by normal people standards, not Schnee ones."
"I'll let her know, but no promises Jaune," Ruby smiled happily.
"I'll have to settle for that, won't I?" Jaune sighed and grabbed a mug of coffee of his own and raised it in a toast. "Nobody knows what the future holds, but here we are anyways. So, for now, to new beginnings!"
"To new beginnings!" Ruby echoed and clinked their mugs together.