There were a lot of things that Blake hadn't been prepared for that night when it came to the interview. She'd been expecting to find herself in a situation where she could just go home and do her job once the interview was done.

She hadn't been preparing herself for the prospect that her interview was going to get cut short. She hadn't been preparing herself to drive home with Weiss at her back and with the woman's arms wrapped around her waist.

Least of all, she hadn't been preparing to find herself in an empty apartment and sharing the space with a very out of place Weiss Schnee.

Somehow, the manner of how that had all been able to happen was still a bit of a blur in Blake's mind.

Weiss and her were sitting on Blake's bed, just in case Yang ended up coming home while the two of them were there. At the very least, the heiress looked uncomfortable, and Blake didn't want to go ahead and pry into that too much.

But the two of them had been sitting there in the quiet for a little too long before Blake finally spoke up.

"So." She asked, opening her laptop in front of her and stretching her fingers out as she opened a new word document so that she could get to work. "Was there anything in particular that you wanted to talk about?"

"There... is." Weiss said after some hesitation. She kept her eyes away from Blake's for a moment before speaking up. "It's about something that Winter said during the interview."

Blake blinked, and raised an eyebrow. She was a little bit more than interested in that, if only because it seemed like Weiss wanted to say something important to her. There were gaps that the younger woman was getting ready to fill in, and Blake wanted to know.

"I'm curious." Blake admitted, pausing for a moment before speaking again. "Does this need to be off the record?"

"Yes." Weiss snapped immediately. "Not a word can leave this room. It's..." Weiss' eyes flickered away from Blake, a blush of shame rising on the heiress' cheeks that was far from unattractive. "A more personal matter."

And if this was about the Schnee family themselves, Blake figured that was a reaction that she needed to expect. There was too much that could go wrong if this truly sensitive information got to the general public.

"Then it's settled." Blake said, pushing her laptop away from herself and showing the screen so that Weiss could see that she wasn't being recorded. "Start whenever you feel like it."

Weiss nodded and closed her eyes. She sighed quietly and seemed to force herself to relax as much as she possibly could before speaking. "The Board of Directors isn't keen on letting go if my father passes away." Weiss said quietly. "And as of right now, he hasn't recovered much at all. The prognosis we were given was… bleak."

"I'm sorry." Blake responded. "So what does that mean for you?"

The heiress shifted and looked away from Blake. From where she was sitting, Blake was able to watch the slow tracing of the pattern on her blankets of Weiss' fingers. They were thin, frail, lovely things. The sort of fingers that were meant to be sliding over piano keys or otherwise creating something beautiful. Unfit for work, even.

Blake forced the thought back before it could get out of hand. She and Weiss were just involved an a mutual working relationship, that was all. Nothing more and nothing less. They both knew it too.

Weiss blinked twice before just letting her eyes slip shut, almost like she was doing her best to take the chance presented to her to just meditate on what was happening. Finally, when Weiss was comfortable, she spoke up to explain.

"What it means for me is that I'm not the most likely person to inherit SchneeCorp when my father passes away." Weiss said, and she sounded almost sad. Like she had just taken a bullet to the heart and didn't want anyone to be able to see the damage that had been done. "As of right now, and for most of my life, I would say that my brother Whitley is and has always been considered the more… worthy heir."

Blake was surprised, and Weiss' words already had her wanting to reach to her laptop so that she could scramble her way through everything that she'd ever learned with regards to the Schnee line. In a way, Weiss had almost explained how Jacques Schnee had been so willing to toss aside his eldest daughter, but had also left some rather large holes open.

"What do you mean by that?" Blake asked, watching Weiss' expressions closely. "Does birth order not matter?"

"It matters on paper." Weiss sighed. "But Whitley is my father's favorite child, and he always has been." She shook her head, and her white bangs swayed slightly with the motion. "To say that he hasn't been able to go through things without some sort of advantage over Winter and I would be a lie."

Blake nodded slowly and leaned back in her space a little bit, doing her best to make herself a little bit more comfortable as the two of them sat there. "What does your mother think of all of this?"

"It doesn't matter." Weiss whispered. "She doesn't have any power with regards to the company even though..." Her voice trailed off.

"Even though she should have been the proper heir to the company over your father." Blake finished. "Is that what you mean?"

"Yes." Weiss admitted. "My grandfather should have passed it down to her, but somehow my father won his favor, and my mother has been written out of the narrative for a long time." She paused for a long time. "My mother is still around but she's not... how she used to be."

"I'm sorry." Blake said. She had yet another note that came to mind that she needed to get down on paper as soon as possible, but she wasn't sure whether it was a thought that she should voice to Weiss. It probably wasn't for the best if she went ahead and asked Weiss how much she thought sexism played into the inner workings of SchneeCorp.

And really, Blake wasn't sure that Weiss would even be able to deny it if she wanted to.

Weiss stared her down with narrowed eyes though, and Blake only let her gaze meet Weiss' as the two of them sat there. "I want to inherit the company," Weiss explained calmly. "But as things are right now, I don't know that I'll have a chance for that. I'll be cast off to the side like Winter was."

Blake watched as Weiss crossed one leg over the other and made herself a little bit more comfortable, even if the entire motion was still as stiff as ever. Weiss was never going to be able to look like she really belonged there in Blake's apartment, Blake thought. She was too out of place, with her fine clothes and everything.

"Do you... want to tell me about your sister?"

"You've met her." Weiss said, and she managed to sound a little bit exasperated when she said that. "I missed her a lot, and seeing her in Atlas again has been nice."

"That doesn't tell me much about her though." Blake explained, sighing. She needed to make sure that Weiss would actually want to trade off information with her if the two of them were going to continue the conversation. "I'm not going to make you tell me anything."

"I know." Weiss responded with a sigh. "I feel like I don't really know anything about you, when you know everything about me."

"That's... not true." Blake said, and she almost wanted to slap herself for those words. She did know much, much more than Weiss knew about her. The nature of her job made it that way, but Blake suspected that she was going to need to be able to make this a more even exchange sometime if this was going to work out as a professional relationship.

And Weiss had certainly caught what Blake had said, based on the glare that had transpired on her face. "Really now?" Weiss snapped. "You don't know everything about me?"

Blake sighed, shaking her head. "I didn't mean it like that." She said finally. "Just that we know about each other in the professional sense."

"And I don't like it." Weiss snapped back. "I'm being asked all of these things about my family and our personal lives and I don't like how... lopsided it feels."

"So how would you like to fix it?" Blake asked, because if she was going to be able to play this right, she needed to be able to do so on Weiss' terms. That was what would ensure the longest mutual relationship between the two of them.

"I'm going to ask you questions, and when you answer one of my questions, you can ask me one." Weiss offered, staring Blake down. "Could you agree to that?"

"Sure." Blake said, resting her hands on her knees and offering Weiss her open palms to signal that she was ready for whatever question the heiress had for her.

"Where are you from?" Weiss asked, starting small. Blake figured that it was a question that Weiss had chosen because it was one of the things that Blake knew undoubtedly about Weiss.

It was also an easy enough question to answer.

Blake looked over at the wall, and her eyes fell on a map. No use in lying. "I was raised in Kuo Kuana." Blake said calmly, with a slight shrug. "It's a little bit..."

"Warmer?" Weiss asked, smiling slightly. "I've never been."

Blake couldn't help but be surprised by that. She had figured that Weiss had been able to see the entire world over the course of the short 24 years of her life. Wealth and her family meant that Weiss would have been able to do anything.

But, Blake thought, Weiss had probably been kept in Atlas and close to her family for most of her life. And it was interesting to think about, that Weiss wouldn't have been able to travel somewhere like that in her life. Or maybe Weiss hadn't had that choice or had decided to go somewhere else.

"It's warmer." Blake said with a shrug. "A lot more crowded than Atlas is, though."

Weiss nodded, and she seemed interested, but whatever she had been thinking of saying or doing was banished soon enough. Weiss forced herself to sit upright and with her back straight. "Well, that's my question." Weiss said quietly. "So I'll answer one of yours."

It didn't take Blake any time at all to figure out what she wanted to ask. She wasn't going to let Weiss leave her apartment that night if she wasn't going to be able to get an answer. "What's the story with your sister?"

"My sister." Weiss sighed. She didn't seem too keen on the question, and Blake decided that it was for the best if she gave the heiress a chance to prepare herself. "You want to know why she was..." Hesitation. "Disowned, don't you?" Weiss finally finished, and hearing it stated in that way was a surprise.

Blake hadn't heard that Winter had been disowned, just that she'd been removed from the line of succession. Suddenly, she was beginning to have second thoughts on whether or not she really wanted to do this and ask these sorts of questions. "Yes." Blake said, quietly. "I'd like to know."

Weiss looked away from Blake, and her eyes were so sad before she finally began her explanation. "It's... complicated." Weiss began. "You need to know that my father isn't a nice man, and that when he feels like someone has wronged him for something, he won't forget about it."

"Right."

"What does the name James Ironwood mean to you, Blake?" Weiss stared Blake down, and there was an intensity that Blake hadn't been prepared for in her gaze.

It was such a sudden question that Blake couldn't help but be taken aback by it. She didn't even know where she was supposed to start with it other than the general knowledge that she did have.

Namely, that James Ironwood was a political figure of some notoriety, and that Winter Schnee was known to be under his employ. Anything beyond that, Blake couldn't be sure. His name wasn't one that had turned up with regards to SchneeCorp aside from one or two passing mentions.

One regarding to a failed engagement decades before, and the other when Winter had started working for him. It wasn't a whole lot for Blake to work off of.

"I know that your sister works for him." Blake responded, leaning back in her seat. "And that he's military, high ranking. People think that he's going into politics sometime soon, though the details are… iffy at best. That's about it."

"Right." Weiss answered. "He and my father... know each other. I wouldn't go as far as to say that the two of them are friends. They're far from it, really, but my father had been trying to get into Ironwood's favor for years before..."

"Before your sister joined the military." Blake finished. "I'll let you continue."

"Exactly." Weiss snapped, crossing one leg over the other. Her gaze fell on a spot on the wall, just over Blake's head. It was clear that she was doing her best to concentrate and keep herself somewhat distant from everything that the two of them were dealing with. "He was a presence when Winter, Whitley, and I were growing up. Winter always liked him a lot, and he was kind for us. He talked to her about joining the military a few times, but I don't know much about it. I don't think he wanted her to join him particularly, Winter always brought it up." Her voice trailed off for a moment.

"When Winter made the decision that she wanted to join the military, my father was furious. He started claiming that Ironwood who is... well, unmarried. You know that. My father started claiming that Ironwood was trying to steal Winter from him, first over something involving my mother, then as a replacement daughter, and then started throwing around…" Weiss stared away, frowning. She looked a little bit like she was about to cry, even before continuing. "Certain accusations. And when every one of those accusations were denied by both of them, my father took it out in his own special way."

"By disowning your sister." Blake suggested, just waiting for the confirmation that her thoughts were correct on the matter. "That's it?"

"Yes." Weiss sighed. "Ironwood comes by the mansion sometimes, but it's rare and never fun to be around for because of how my father would act. Winter was cut off completely, but Ironwood's been known to give her enough free reign to check in on the family from time to time. He and my mother were friends..." There was another moment of hesitation. "It's been hard on us."

Blake nodded along, unsure of whether or not she wanted to go ahead and prompt Weiss for more answers on the topic. There was something underneath the current of everything that Blake didn't want to pry into. Something that felt like this sort of behavior from Jacques Schnee was fairly normal, that he wasn't afraid to hurt the people close to him to prove a point.

And suddenly the fear over whether or not she was being obvious about who her sources were became much, much more tangible. Weiss wasn't just looking at being disinherited- she was looking at being cut off from her family completely, in the same way that Winter had been. WInter wasn't afraid of getting in trouble for work reasons, she was afraid of things getting even worse between herself and her father.

There were still gaps in the story though. Blake didn't know much about how Whitley Schnee played into this and as for Willow Schnee...

Well, considering what she had heard involving old grudges with Ironwood and how Winter fit into things, Blake wasn't sure she wanted to know where the dots connected. There might have been something dark and terrifying, and Blake had doubts that Weiss would be able to fill in those gaps.

Willow Schnee was a ghost. Willow Schnee's history, at least what was known of it, was somewhat sad.

And her daughters were being punished for it, it seemed.

There were truly layers upon layers upon layers of implications brought on by that fact alone, and Blake didn't know that she really wanted to go ahead and dig into them. It was sure to be a story that would only fall apart the more that it got looked into.

She paused and looked across the bed at Weiss, who was sitting there with her legs folded together at her side. Weiss looked so sad, and Blake wanted to be able to reach out and help her. She wanted to be able to offer comfort to this girl, but at the same time she wasn't sure that she ever could.

It would only cause problems. It would be a case of her making serious bounds past what they were.

"I'm sorry." Blake said quietly, watching Weiss' face. She was going to have to make sure that she wrote down everything that they shared that day later. It wasn't so that she could report on Weiss' story, but so that she knew what not to say.

That was just as important as knowing what to say was.

"It isn't your fault." Weiss said, all too quietly. Broken, almost, Blake thought. "My father is an angry man, even if he doesn't let it show to the world. They don't need to know how bad things are with the Schnees. To people we're just..."

"Rich." Blake finished, because that was really how it was for most people. What people thought when they saw the name Schnee was that the people bearing it were wealthy and wrapped up in their own lives. "It isn't your fault."

"I know." Weiss said quietly. "But I need to be able to be the best for the sake of looking after my father's company. I know that it'll make things harder between myself and Whitley but if I want the family company to be respected, someone needs to step in that cares about it."

That brought another question up in Blake's mind, but she wasn't going to bring it up. Not yet, since they were trying to make things as equal as possible.

Weiss closed her eyes and let her head tilt down. Her hands were balled into fists in front of her, and Blake saw that she had taken hold of her skirt in the process. Instead of saying anything, Blake just sat back at let Weiss take her time to relax. It was too necessary.

There was a long wait before Weiss spoke up again.

"Can I ask you another question?"

"Of course." Blake replied, feeling a little bit worried. "What is it?"

"Did you just come to Atlas for work?" Weiss started, sounding a little bit more calm and happy. "Or was there some other reason for it?"

Blake swallowed hard, feeling a wave of anxiety beginning to rise from her chest. It was a topic that she didn't want to discuss all too much, and there were a lot of reasons for that. But, if they were being honest with each other, Blake knew that she was going to have to speak up.

She balled her hands into fists in her lap, and when her nails cut into her palm, Blake ignored it.

"You want to know that?"

"I think so." Weiss replied. "Is there something-"

"No." Blake sighed. "It's just a hard topic."

"Well, I'm listening."

Blake tilted her head up so that she could look Weiss in the eye. Weiss just stared across at her, and finally Blake felt ready to begin to explain herself.

"I didn't come to Atlas for work originally." Blake began, knowing that her voice was coming off as a little too quietly. "I came here for... someone. He got a job with The Fang and I thought that I loved him so much that I followed him here." She shook her head, trying not to focus on the thought too much. It was too painful. "I ended up getting a job with The Fang with his help, then we worked together, and eventually stopped working together."

Weiss had her mouth open, and she blinked her soft blue eyes. She looked shocked, and Blake just hoped that Weiss wasn't reading between the lines in what she was saying. She didn't need for Weiss to immediately know why she had left her old partner.

The fact that Blake was barely even able to breathe the man's name, Adam, was an indicator enough of how bad it was. Someday she was going to have to talk to people about it, but for now...

Well, Blake was happy to dodge the topic. It wasn't something that she even talked about with her family or friends. The only one that really knew anything about it was Ilia but it was a silent topic. One that they both decided was best kept out of discussion.

"Was... there a reason that you stopped working with him?" Weiss asked, and for a moment Blake could only think that the heiress managed to sound disappointed. That was something that she didn't want to read into or try to understand. It was too dangerous to get that attached or worried about it.

"There was." Blake sighed. "It was just... better that we went our separate ways."

"So you're pretty much here in Atlas for as long as you're with The Fang?" Weiss asked, like that was the only thing that she wanted to try to understand without breaking through the barriers that they needed between them. "Or do you actually like it here?"

"I don't know." Blake replied, shrugging. "I've been planning to stay here for a while if I can. It can be... hard, but I like it here for the most part."

"Aside from the winters?" Weiss joked, smiling softly.

"Aside from the winters." Blake finished, realizing that she might have been given an out intentionally.

So Weiss understood? Maybe? Blake didn't know.

Really, it was about time that she got to a question of her own, but Blake didn't know that she wanted to do that yet. Not after Weiss had said so much about what was going on in her life already. It was probably for the best to let the heiress talk and figure things out herself.

Weiss relaxed her hands and brushed her skirt back down on her legs. "I don't blame you." She said finally. "For being here for work. I don't like being here that much because of my family, but Atlas isn't that bad of a place to live."

"Well, you choose to spend most of your time in Vale, don't you?" Blake asked, turning her head to stare Weiss down for a bit. "How do you like that?"

"Vale?" Weiss asked. "You want to know about Vale and not about the company?"

"Consider me curious."

Weiss' face screwed up a little bit before she let herself explain what she thought of her situation. "Well, I went out to Vale because I heard that it was a nice place to stay, and the education opportunities there were nice. A couple of my friends also went there, and we all just liked it so much that we decided to stay."

Weiss' face reddened a little bit, and she looked back down at the bed. "It really isn't all that interesting."

And Blake paused, because she hadn't really been thinking about Weiss' life in Vale as a thing that was interesting to talk about. She'd more been curious because that was just a way to better understand the Heiress.

For Blake, time spent with Weiss was beginning to feel like a constant process of peeling back layers to see what was hiding underneath. Under the spoiled rich girl look, there was someone interested in her family's company, then under that there was a someone that was just looking for things to turn out well, and then under that...

Blake didn't know what the next layer was. That was what she wanted to find out, as unprofessional as it was.

Ultimately, the whole thing was making her wish that she was able to actually come into the topic from an unbiased angle and learn about Weiss because of who Weiss was as a person rather than for work. The fact that Blake was largely in Weiss' life because of the fact that the woman's father was possibly dying left a bad taste in her mouth.

She was a vulture, and SchneeCorp and its members were practically corpses laid out before her.

That didn't make it any better.

"Tell me about Vale anyways." Blake said, watching Weiss. "It'd probably be nice to get away from company talk on your end."

"Well," Weiss began. "Like I said, I went there for university originally, and I ended up with some friends there. Of course there's a bit of a... gap between us and the average person, but that really makes it safer for us." She paused, looking at Blake with some guilt. Blake felt her stomach twist over it. "It's easier when people think that we'll walk over them because that way they'll just..."

"Leave you alone?"

"Yeah." Weiss sighed. "And it's not like that at all. My friends in Vale... they're some of the nicest people I know, they're just more... privileged. And we try to be aware of it."

Blake nodded along, not sure if she knew what to say to Weiss at that. She was sure that if she wanted to she could easily find out who those friends that Weiss was referring to were, but...

Well, it would be better to just ask those questions in person, wouldn't it?

"Has that been a problem regularly?" Blake prompted the heiress.

Weiss cocked her head to the side, but the motion was quickly aborted as she decided to look down into her own lap instead. "No." Weiss began. "Usually we just get by without people causing us too much trouble and see where we can go from there."

"Do you miss your friends from there?"

The silence that fell over the room really managed to speak for itself, Blake decided. Weiss looked quite sad, and Blake had to wonder how much the woman had needed to give up so that she could come to Atlas. It seemed like Weiss had needed to abandon everything for the sake of her family, whether she liked it or not.

Not entirely unlike how Blake had chosen to relocate her entire life for someone that she ultimately ended up hating.

"I do." Weiss sighed. "Neptune and Coco said that they wanted to come and see me when they got a chance, but..." She paused. "I don't know that they'll want to come until they know how things are going with my father."

"Neptune Vasilias and Coco Adel?" Blake guessed, since those were the only names that matched what she knew about Weiss' life. "Those are your friends?"

"They are." Weiss said, blinking at Blake. "They're really quite nice." She paused, and actually smirked just a little bit. "How do you know their names?"

"Heard them through the grapevine," Blake admitted. "A lot of my work is just... watching the news. Regardless of what type."

"Right." Weiss replied, leaning back in her seat. "I'll be able to see them again eventually, it's just going to be hard."

"Right."

There was a quiet, and then the sound of the door to the apartment opening made Blake feel the need to get up and check in with Yang. It was probably for the best if her roommate knew not to bother them.

Weiss had heard it too, though. The way that she had almost jolted over the sound and craned her neck in the direction of the door to Blake's room was an indicator enough of that. Blake decided not to bring it up, but a quick look at her alarm clock told her that they were going to have to get Weiss home sooner than later.

It was late.

"That's probably my roommate." Blake said, climbing off of the bed and stretching. It was probably better to let Yang know that they had company. "Do you want me to-"

"Introduce us?" Weiss asked, and she actually managed to sound a little bit nervous about it all. "Or..."

"I actually meant let my roommate know that I have company." Blake joked, and Weiss took it easily enough. "It's just a courtesy thing."

"Right." Weiss said, looking away from Blake. "Is your roommate..."

"If you're asking if she's involved with the Fang, she's not. Trust me on that." Blake said, heading over to the door. "I'll be back in a minute."

"Okay." Weiss said, and she watched as Blake disappeared on the other side of the door, closing it behind her.


Weiss sat there on the bed for several minutes, waiting for Blake and ultimately unsure of what to make of the impromptu question and answer session that the two of them were taking part in. Blake was asking her a lot of questions that were personal, and while Weiss wasn't entirely sure whether or not she could completely trust the woman, this was good enough.

After all, she was finally in a situation where she was able to find out things about Blake. She hadn't been expecting to get a look into the woman's house after the initial interview with Winter had gone so poorly. She hadn't been expecting to hear that Blake was from Kuo Kuana or that Blake had come to Atlas primarily for work.

And just the same, she hadn't been expecting questions about her personal life that was unrelated to the work that she did with the Fang. Blake seemed to be taking it all in stride, but Weiss was left with so many questions that she had absolutely no good way of getting answered. As things stood, Blake was out talking to her roommate (and Weiss couldn't help but wonder what it was like having a roommate. During university she'd had private housing, and as a child she'd never been able to share a space with Winter or Whitley like that.) WEiss was left to sit in Blake's bedroom alone.

It wasn't as horrific as it could have been, Weiss thought as she looked around the room. It was decorated fairly sparsely, with the most attention having been paid to Blake's desk. There was something in Weiss that tugged her towards the desk, where it seemed like Blake decided to store all of her notes.

What would she learn if she went there and began to look over them? Weiss didn't know, but she was so afraid to find out. The chances that Blake was going to have things there that were strictly judging her family, judging her were too high.

Weiss hesitated and looked over at the door, checking whether or not Blake was back. She could hear the sound of Blake and another woman talking, and Weiss decided that it wouldn't hurt to get up and stretch her legs a little. Of course, she was going to have to think about getting back to the mansion sometime.

But for now...

Weiss crept over towards the desk and looked down at it, her eyes scanning over pages upon pages of notes, both typed and handwritten. So much of it didn't read like actual notes beyond some sort of dossier. Blake's records on the Schnee family, their major business holdings, among other things.

Nothing personal, from what she could see. So much of it was just speculation.

Weiss was afraid for what would make it onto that sheet from that day.

Really, she never wanted to find out.

The thought made her stomach flip, and so when Blake came back in, Weiss politely decided to ask for a ride back to the Schnee Manor so that she could rest. Blake didn't question it, and that was a relief.

The feeling of the wind on Weiss' face as she clung to the back of Blake's motorcycle was almost calming.