Their dinner ended up being surprisingly good, despite everything. It had managed to outdo every expectation that Weiss had come into it with, and afterwards she found herself not quite wanting to split away from Blake. The easy thing would have been to ask for a ride back to her father's mansion, and then Weiss would be able to move on with her life from there.

However, as things stood, Weiss didn't want to do that.

Why would she have wanted to go back to the mansion and misery, when she had Blake, who was real and tangible and didn't feel like she existed merely to act as a controller?

For those two reasons alone, Weiss was sitting by the riverbank with Blake, the same way that they had several weeks before. There was something about it that was heartbreakingly close to being romantic. It must have been the way that they were able to be there, just out of sight from the road, and the night air, and the cool breeze on her skin.

It must have been the way that she and Blake would both feel so content to be able to slip out of their jackets every time that they stopped. Then there was also the fact that Weiss and Blake were sharing a snack together. Both of them had decided to get small bowls of ice cream.

Blake had gone with something more decadent with bits of cookies in it, but Weiss had been content with simple vanilla.

It was nice.

"Thank you for doing this tonight." Weiss said quietly, facing out towards the river as she sat there beside her friend. Possibly more than friend. Whatever it was that she and Blake were these days. "It's been fun."

"Yeah," Blake replied, poking at her bowl of ice cream with a plastic spoon. "It has been. I can't say that I would have ever expected to do something like this with you."

"I feel the same way." Weiss said with a soft smile. There was still so much that the two of them were going to need to talk about. It was going to be something that would shake the world. It would introduce worries into their world that neither could get past. "It's been so... different.."

Blake set her bowl down at her side and turned to face Weiss directly. Weiss took the cue and faced her friend as well. "I know that the two of us should probably... talk about this."

There was a moment where Weiss hesitated and then she spoke up for herself. "I didn't mean to put all of that on you," Weiss explained quietly, feeling some sick worry rising up in her chest that she wasn't going to be able to simply ignore. "But I did mean it. I like being around you a lot, and while I shouldn't do that..."

She felt her face heat up. She leaned back against the fence and tried to find more comfort in her position and ignore Blake's presence at her side.

But she was shocked out of her thoughts by the feeling of Blake's hand setting down on top of her own. Weiss' eyes snapped open and her gaze went straight to her companion.

In the dark of the night, with only the moon and the streetlights there to cast any lighting on either of them, Blake looked beautiful. She had golden eyes that looked even more striking, her black hair was framing her face. There was still that light danger on her face that Weiss couldn't just ignore.

Blake looked at her and smiled.

Weiss couldn't help but smile back. Their hands were still touching, and Weiss didn't exactly have the desire to pull back from her.

"I like you too." Blake said calmly, her voice still holding that same cool tone that it always did. The familiarity of it all made it so much easier for Weiss to deal with, and she was sure that it was something that she was never going to actually be able to express her gratitude for. "In that way."

Weiss nodded, and there was still that question dancing on the tip of her tongue. She needed to know whether or not it was going to be something that the two of them could do. If she and Blake were to try and fall into any sort of non-professional relationship, then it would surely put them both at risk in some way. For Weiss, it would be a matter of how her family would treat it. They would see her relationship to Blake as wrong, and for so many different reasons.

It would be about how they were both women, or how Weiss was supposed to be dating Neptune Vasilias. They would make it about class, or they would make it about Blake's occupation. None of that was anything that she wanted to necessarily find herself bowing to, and Weiss wasn't going to let that happen as easily as someone would have liked.

All that she had to do was make the offer to make that a reality.

Blake would be able to take the wheels on the rest... right?

So Weiss let out a quiet sigh, and clenched her hands into fists at her sides and in her skirt because she couldn't think of anything else to do. She needed to say something, offer something, let this be a reality. And Blake was there, waiting for it.

Weiss looked the reporter dead in the eye, and then allowed herself to speak.

"If we both feel the same way, then we should probably try to do something about it, shouldn't we?"

"Yes," Blake sighed, leaning back in her seat. "We probably should, but it would be..."

"Risky."

"For both of us." Blake finished for Weiss, knowing that the two of them were both following the same train of thought. "I think that I can do it as long as I can keep all of this segregated from my work- write the right way, and don't let it slip to anyone."

Weiss didn't know whether or not that was actually going to be possible for Blake. It certainly couldn't have been easy.

Weiss nodded along, at a bit of a loss for words. "I'm going to have to find a way to hide it from my family." She said quietly. "I know for a fact that my father won't approve, and the others in my family think that I'm seeing Neptune…"

"I think you're going to need to talk to him sometime about that." Blake suggested calmly. "Maybe you should invite him up to Atlas to play it up, and then…"

Weiss hesitated. The two of them hadn't talked about anything really personal in a while. She wanted to be able to go about this with Blake. If she was going to call Neptune to come to Atlas, then she was also going to have to expect that Coco would get dragged along as well.

If that happened, then Weiss was going to end up left with a full plate to handle.

"I could." Weiss admitted with a quiet sigh. "Neptune should be fine with it, but I'm just worried about how my family will go about it. I'm sure that I can keep it from them easily enough, but there's still so much at risk that we'll have to handle."

Blake nodded along in understanding. "Weiss, I'm going to be here for you. If you're worried about me getting jealous over your obviously fake fake boyfriend, you should know that I won't. It's fake. I'm not going to worry."

And that was really all that there was to it, wasn't it? Weiss thought to herself. She and Blake could fall into their relationship, move on with their lives, and see where it all went at the end of the day. There was no way that they weren't going to be able to forget about so much of this.

But Blake was smart, and she had never shown herself to be anything less than kind when it came to Weiss.

Weiss looked the woman directly in the eyes. "You know that if Neptune is going to be here, he's going to be likely to bring along another friend or two with him." Weiss explained calmly. "And that most of my friends come from situations that one could say are similar to mine. Myself, Coco Adel, Neptune... we're all the rich heirs of rich companies."

"Are they anything like you?"

"It depends what you mean by that." Weiss replied, blinking. "Because I don't know what you want me to tell you."

Blake seemed to hesitate and give that question further consideration. Weiss was glad that Blake was at the very least willing to reconsider it, all things considered. She didn't like being boiled down to some sort of stereotype, and her friends wouldn't be the types to like it either.

It was a long moment, and then Blake finally decided to speak up and try to explain herself. "I'm just asking whether or not they'll judge too hard when they meet me."

And for Weiss, that was a question that she didn't know that she was actually going to be able to answer in the long run. While she knew Coco and Neptune fairly well, it wasn't as though the two of them had spent much time away from high society in their early years.

But she also knew enough about her friends that she could make some safe guesses. Neptune had friends that Weiss hadn't met that were from the middle class, and Coco liked to dabble with all sorts of people.

She looked Blake in the eyes, hoping that she would be able to connect to the other woman before answering. "I don't think that they would." Weiss finally said, keeping her voice on the quieter end of the spectrum. "If anything, I think that as long as they don't know what you are-"

"What I am?"

"A reporter." Weiss clarified, realizing that what she'd said might not have come off that well at the first word. "Specifically one that reports on my family."

"Right." Blake responded, taking her comfort in it for the most part. "So you think that as long as they don't know about, it'll be fine?"

"I'm sure of it." Weiss said, smiling back at Blake. "They aren't like my family, Blake. They actually like people. And that's not just for opportunistic reasons."

"That's good." Blake murmured. She leaned back on the bench and let one of her legs stretch out in front of her. Blake had lovely long legs, Weiss thought, feeling her face heat up a little bit too much. That wasn't something for her to be focusing on, and she knew that perfectly well. "So if they come down, you'd want me to meet them?"

"I'd at least want you to talk to Neptune." Weiss sighed, fidgeting with her sleeve in an attempt to calm herself down at least a little bit. The distraction was always going to be more than welcome when everything was taken into consideration. "If I'm going to have to play along with a story where he and I are dating..."

"That makes sense. Boundaries are important."

Blake was staring off across the river, like she thought that there was something on the other side of it. Weiss was sure that there wasn't anything, but if Blake wanted to keep an eye out, Weiss was going to allow it. She couldn't exactly do anything to stop Blake.

"Are you okay with it?"

"With what?" Blake scoffed. "You pretending to date him?"

"No." Weiss paused. "With me and you. As more than just... what we've been doing."

Blake was giving her a weird look, and Weiss only managed to feel herself getting more and more insecure the longer that the two of them sat there and talked.

"I like it." Blake shrugged.

Weiss smiled, because that managed to be the absolute most comforting thing that Blake could have ever said to her. It was a reassurance that the two of them were going to be on good terms once everything finally got going properly.

For now, the two of them were going to be on odd footing, and that was something that Weiss was confident in. She didn't want to be the one falling apart in any way, but that seemed like it would be inevitable at some point.

But for now, she had Blake, and the two of them were willing to work hand in hand with each other.

"I'm glad." Weiss said, smiling back across at Blake and lacing her hands together. She set them down in her lap and stared across the city in the same way that her companion had. It was rather beautiful, Weiss though. It wasn't winter, but when it came she was sure that the view would end up being much more beautiful.

The two of them ended up sitting there for a while, both of them enjoying their ice cream until it was either gone or melted. Once it was over, they both got up and climbed onto Blake's motorcycle so that they could make a trip to their respective homes.

Weiss watched Blake drive away, and she couldn't help but feel like she'd just been shot in the heart.

Watching Blake go was always going to be difficult.

With everything that was going to come later, it only got harder and harder to think about.


Blake got back to her apartment, and came inside to find that her roommate was sitting on the couch, with her little sister at her feet. Blake wasn't at all surprised to find that on the list of things that she wanted to deal with when she got home spending time with Yang and Ruby ranked pretty low.

Not that she could exactly go ahead and say that.

Yang's head swiveled at the sound of the door closing behind Blake. She stared Blake down, and Blake sighed as she peeled off her jacket and stepped out of her boots. On at least some level, Blake was expecting that she was going to hear something about how she hadn't exactly come home that day.

In all likelihood, Yang had been expecting for Blake to come home and for the two of them to spend time together.

"Hey." Blake greeted Yang and Ruby, setting down her helmets by the door and finally heading deeper into the apartment. "How are you two?"

"We're good." Ruby replied, turning in her seat on the sofa to face Blake head on. She had her legs crossed under her, that was clear enough when Blake walked around the side of the couch. "We missed you a lot."

"I'm sorry." Blake sighed as she looked between her two friends. "I was planning to be home earlier, but I ended up getting caught up with something else instead."

"Eh, it happens." Yang responded, sounding a little bit too cheerful. "How's Kuo Kuana?"

Blake groaned, because that was something that she really didn't want to talk about all that much. She could take comfort in the fact that she wasn't being questioned about what she had been doing that night for now, but it wouldn't last long.

"It's home." Blake sighed. "Parents were glad to see me, so there's that."

Ruby cocked her head to the side and edged her way closer to the armrest on the couch. It create just enough room that Blake was able to squeeze into the space between her friends. Spending time with any friends felt awkward then, with everything that she and Weiss had talked about that night still fresh in Blake's memory.

But she loved Ruby and Yang, and to have them both so glad to have her home was nice.

"We're always happy to see you too." Ruby added. She was smiling up at Blake. "I mean, you just left and we didn't get to talk much."

"I know." Blake sighed. "I've been really busy with other things lately." She felt a wave of shame wash over her, and Blake knew that she had so much more that she was going to need to try to apologize for. Too many times she had ended up abandoning plans with her friends for the sake of work. Now, it was time to spend her hours with her friends. "I'm sorry. I've been too busy with work lately."

"Yeah, you have." Yang commented, crossing her legs and turning so that she could face Blake a little more directly. "It's been worth it though, right?"

Blake paused, because that was something that really wasn't as easy to answer as it could have been. If she'd had her way this would have been easily explained. Not without her having to worry about whether or not she was saying too much about something.

"I think that it has." Blake responded. "I've made some pretty... important connections for work."

Yang stared at Blake and leaned in. She squinted at Yang, her face screwing up in the way that it did when she was clearly trying to figure something out. "You sure that's all it is?"

"Uh, what?" Ruby asked, looking a little bit confused herself. Blake wasn't surprised by it, since Ruby hadn't exactly been spending a lot of time at the apartment. Yang had been there at the apartment at the same time that Weiss had been.

Blake rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "There's nothing." Blake said calmly. "I've been giving interviews, and the person I've been talking to tends to like her privacy."

"That," Yang laughed, "is code for Blake having a super rich and famous girlfriend, Ruby."

And despite the fact that she really didn't want to deal with it, Blake knew that she had to dignify Yang with some sort of response. "She's..." And Blake was about to deny it, but then the conversations that she'd just had with Weiss came rising up in her. To deny it that point would make her feel terrible, and Blake was going to do her best to keep that from happening. "That's not exactly it, but yeah. Basically. This doesn't leave this room, though."

"Holy shit, you mean I was right?" Yang asked, her eyes going weird and her blinking. "I was just joking about it, but you're actually dating her?" Yang leaned back in her seat. "Should I start looking for a new roommate now, or-"

"Don't worry about it just yet." Blake rolled her eyes, keeping her gaze averted from Yang and Ruby's. "It's not that serious."

"We'll see." Yang sighed. "I just hope that you won't forget about us, Blake. Introduce us to your new friend sometime."

"Maybe." Blake sighed. "I have to worry about meeting her friends first, it seems."

"Wait." Yang interjected, and there was this look on her face that read only as being shock above all else. "You're going to be meeting her friends?"

Blake sighed, because this was something that she really, really didn't want to have to get into too much, but it also seemed that she wasn't being given much of a choice in the matter. She looked back at Ruby, who was also staring at her with wide eyes and looking very interested.

Finally, she allowed herself to explain some things.

"Yeah," Blake finally grumbled. "I am, but I'm not sure how I feel about it."

"Why, don't want to hang out with the spoiled rich kids?" Yang asked, leaning back in her seat and stretching out again, as nonchalant as ever. "Because if that's it, I'm not really surprised."

"That's... a part of it." Blake admitted. "I just don't know that it's a good idea."

Yang nodded, and she looked like she was trying to figure something out. Maybe she was trying to look at this as a puzzle where there was sure to be a solution if they could just find it. If that was indeed what Yang was doing, then Blake didn't know how this could go well exactly, but she could do her best to roll with things.

"Well..."

Ruby was talking, and Blake had to swivel to look at her other friend.

"Yeah?"

"Well, if you're going to be meeting her friends, and you want her to meet us-" Ruby was holding her hands out in front of her, like they were both meant to represent the different groups involved in all of this. "Why don't you guys just try and have it so that all of us can meet?"

And if it wasn't for the inescapable fact that Blake was in a situation where she was going to have to pay attention to members of the social elite that would have been a great idea. They could have let Yang just pick out some nightclub, and the time spent there could serve as their social time and getting to know each other period.

Somehow, Blake didn't think that nightclubs were something that Weiss would be into. She didn't even like them that much personally and mostly only ever went to the things because of Yang.

She needed to think of a good answer for Ruby, though. That was of the utmost importance, in its own way.

"It's not that simple." Blake just sighed. "I don't know what I'm going to get with these people. The names that Weiss has mentioned, they're all people that are inheriting companies. Big ones. They all probably grew up with allowances that were bigger than what any of us could ever hope to make in a year."

"And?" Yang prompted.

"And if they aren't going to like me, I don't want them to take that out on you too." Blake frowned and leaned back in her seat. She dug her fingers into her pants, and scratched up and down them like it was a way to make herself feel more comforted in this situation. It didn't work, it just left her with dark blue crescents under her nails as bits of fiber were pulled up from the denim. "I like you two too much, and I don't' want this ruining my relationship with either of you."

"Yeah," Yang said, rolling her eyes. "Okay, sure, or you could put some trust in us to be able to do what we can to make your life easier."

"This isn't about that." Blake snapped back.

Almost immediately, she snapped her mouth back shut at the realization that she had lashed out much more harshly than she'd been meaning to. She'd been hoping that she would be able to just get some of the frustration that was clinging on to her away.

That wouldn't be so easy, of course.

There were always so many layers to the things wrong with what she got stuck doing.

"What's it about then?" Yang asked back, still glaring at Blake. "Because if this isn't about you opening up, and it isn't about work, then when is it about?"

Blake couldn't help but pause, because that was a question that she really didn't have a good answer for. All that she knew was that she was trying her best to feel her way out of a messy situation without much else to go on.

"It's just complicated." Blake offered as her explanation, as weak as it was. "Just trust me on that."

"So that's it?" Yang asked. "It's complicated?"

"Yes," Blake said, biting her cheek. "I'll tell you guys more when I know that I'm able to tell you more, but right now I can't give you much." She stood up, and looked to the clock. It was late, and that was a good enough excuse to remove herself from this as anything. "It's late."

"Yeah," Ruby commented, and the youngest of the three of them did look a little bit hurt. "I guess it is..."

"I'm going to bed." Blake sighed. "I'll talk to you two soon."

With that said, she slipped off and out of view of the other two. She could practically feel the stares of her friends on her back before she closed the door on them. This wasn't a good situation, but she's doing her best.

That much Blake was confident in.