Blake sat at the cafe which Weiss and her had agreed on for a lunch meeting the previous night. Weiss had been wanting a place for them to eat before getting a day in together anyways. It was a pretty normal place, and that had Blake very worried for what was going to come later in that day. Weiss was supposed to be bringing her friends along, and that was enough to make Blake worry on its own.

She had ended up going to the cafe a bit early, because that felt right to do. At the very least she could make sure that the four of them had a good table.

The door opened to the cafe and Blake looked up, ignoring her mug of tea for a moment in hopes of seeing Weiss.

But it wouldn't be Weiss.

Instead, Blake found herself staring at the one person that she really, really didn't want to run into that day. Someone that she never wanted to spend any serious amount of time around in general stood there instead.

He stalked his way across the shop and dropped down into the seat across from her. He was still wearing his sunglasses, and Blake was sure that he wasn't going to do anything to remove them either.

But he was leaving her with no choice but to talk. It was too early to go crying for help.

Blake could handle this. It was just-

"Hello, Blake." He greeted her, leaning back in his seat directly across from her. He let his legs stretch out in a way so that they would be sure to bump up against Blake's in a sure show of dominance. She wished that she knew how he'd been able to find her when she'd been living her life in a way that was meant to force distance between them.

"Hello, Adam." Blake responded, sitting up tall and feeling like there'd been an iron rod shoved down her spine. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm just here to talk about work," Adam said, stretching his fingers out for just a moment. "Or is that not allowed anymore?"

"I don't want to talk to you about anything." Blake responded. She wished that she had something in her pockets so that she would be able to defend herself. The good thing was that she was in a public place, and that was going to make it a little bit easier. If things went south, all she had to do was make enough of a fuss that others would notice.

Adam cocked his head to the side and leaned in, letting himself brace himself against the table. "Why not?"

"Because I don't like you." Blake said. "Not even enough to want to consider working with you."

Adam's expression twisted into a snarl of sorts. Blake knew that his eyes were narrowed behind his sunglasses, and the flexing of his fingers into a fist told her plenty. She'd managed to get under his skin, and while that had the potential to be a good thing, Blake knew that she couldn't be too sure about that.

"Why so frosty?" Adam responded. "You and I used to have such good times together."

"What do you want, Adam?" Blake asked, snarling back at him. "Because I really don't have the time to talk to you."

"I wanted to ask you back to work with me." Adam responded, shrugging in leaning back. "Rumor has it that the Schnees are preparing a fundraiser for the old bastard's hospital expenses, like they won't be able to pay the bills themselves."

"I'm sure that's grossly misrepresenting the situation." Blake deadpanned her response. It was enough to make her wonder about how much worse it could be. "And I don't want to work with you. I've already told you that."

"I was just saying, you and I could get in, mess around in an office or two for old time's sakes-" He brought one hand up by his head. He was fidgeting with a pen, Blake realized then. "Next thing we know, the Schnee Charities are getting looked into for fraud. We get one hell of a payday."

Blake blinked, because she really didn't know what was being offered to her. There were a lot of questions that she had, and she didn't even know where to start with asking them. If the Schnees were planning something, then she definitely hadn't heard about it from Weiss.

"Are you suggesting fraud or blackmail?"

Adam laughed. "Whatever would take the Schnees down." He replied, stretching and leaning back into his seat a little bit more. "I know that you don't like them, Blake. No reason to go acting all high and mighty."

"I'm above that work." Blake snapped back. "And I'm happy to not be doing it anymore."

Adam shrugged. "You know that you aren't a real reporter, no matter what Ilia says-" He stopped himself and stared her down. "She says hi, by the way. Said you were doing good, you were on a big story."

"Did she tell you anything else?" Blake asked. "Or just that?"

"She said you and her had broken up." Adam added, almost absentmindedly. "Which, good for you, by the way. I know that you can do better."

"What, like you?"

He grinned, but it was devilish and harsh. Like a cat cornering a mouse. "You said it, not me."

And that was frustrating. It made Blake roll her eyes. She needed to do something to get Adam to leave her alone, because if she couldn't-

Weiss was coming. If Weiss was going to get there when Adam was still there, then Blake knew that everything was going to get blown out of the water. Adam wasn't the type to even pretend to care about anonymity agreements or non disclosure agreements.

If he wanted to make everyone involved look bad, then he would just do it and ask no questions. Really, he'd just love watching the explosions from off in the distance.

And Blake really, really, didn't want for him to be able to go ahead and ruin everything.

Blake closed her eyes and all but forced herself to take a deep breath in an attempt to just calm down. Getting angry with Adam never served to do much of anything beneficial, and Blake knew that perfectly well. The worst thing that she could do was give him any more power over her than he already had.

"Adam," Blake began, keeping her voice as steady as she could manage. "I don't have the time for this."

Adam didn't respond. He just stared her down the same way, anger clearly there in his expression. If the two of them weren't in a public place, Blake knew that she would be feeling much less uncomfortable than she was now.

"And what could possibly be more important, my darling?" Adam asked.

It made Blake's skin crawl. She suppressed the shiver that wanted to race down her spine and tried not to let her hands ball into fists. "I'm busy." She said, this time more insistent.

"You don't look busy."

"Yes, well, I am!" Blake snapped, finally raising her voice. Almost immediately she wanted to shrink back, if only because she knew what she was doing. She'd just put herself into a bad situation just like that. Blake was going to need to do something.

She needed to do anything to get away from Adam. Get to her bike, drive as far from this restaurant as she could, and then she was going to need to call Weiss to let her know that there was a change of plans.

And then Blake was going to have to be able to explain it all. Blake didn't even know if doing that was going to be possible without putting herself in an even more compromising situation.

Adam was one of those things that she really didn't want to share with a lot of people.

"Then what are you doing here?" Adam asked her, and there was a new sort of venom to his voice that was going to only get worse and worse. "Because I'm very curious."

"I'm waiting for someone." Blake responded. "And if you aren't going to leave me alone, then I'm going to leave."

"Who are you meeting?" Adam asked, and Blake knew fully well that it was more of an order than it was a question. That was what Adam wanted, at least.

"I'm not telling you." Blake said as she got up. She began on the fastest route that she could find that would get her to the door of the diner. Adam, unsurprisingly got up to follow after her. It made Blake only move faster.

"Blake!" He called to her as the two of them exited the store. "Why are you leaving me?"

"i'm trying to leave." Blake snapped back as she stepped up alongside her bike. "Leave me alone."

"Blake, why do you want to leave me?" Adam asked her, and Blake just climbed onto her motorcycle. Try not to give him the attention, just get out of there. "Is my offer not good enough?"

Once she was somewhere safe, then she was going to be able to call Weiss and tell her not to come. Blake couldn't afford to have Weiss near Adam, not when he would be glad to sabotage everything that she was doing.

Until then, she had no options.

Blake checked over her shoulder to see whether or not Adam was trying to follow after her. He was, and that wasn't surprising. It only caused Blake to pick up her pace until she was finally speeding off in the opposite direction. Later on she was going to need to talk to Ilia and let her know of what happened.

Assuming that Ilia didn't already know that Adam had come asking about her.

Blake drove for several minutes and ended up parking in an area in Upper Atlas, much closer to the Schnee Manor than it was to the restaurant where she was supposed to meet with Weiss.

Only then, when she was certain, did Blake allow herself to pick up the phone.

The phone rang a few times before Weiss answered.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end of the line asked. "Blake?"

"We need to change plans." Blake said, a little bit more insistently than she would have liked. "Something came up, the place we planned for won't work anymore."

"Blake?" Weiss asked, this time sounding a little bit afraid. "What's wrong, did something happen?"

"I'll explain later." Blake sighed, and oh, she was going to have to do a lot later to make sure that she was explaining it all clearly. The harder part was going to be keeping herself detached emotionally. "I promise."

Weiss was quiet, and it was a deafening sort of silence. The kind that Blake wasn't going to be able to relax over until she knew for a fact that the air had been cleared. That was going to be on her, ultimately. The fact that Weiss was undoubtedly with her two friends didn't make it any less daunting.

Really, Blake couldn't even be sure that she would have time alone with Weiss until Coco and Neptune were out of Atlas entirely.

"Are you sure that everything is okay?" Weiss asked, and she sounded like she was walking around. By that guess, it was possible that Weiss was already at that restaurant, and if that was the case...

"Are you at the diner?" Blake asked. "I need to know."

"I mean, we're leaving. What's going on?"

"It isn't safe." Blake said, gripping the phone a little tighter than she'd needed to. She couldn't help it, that spike of nervousness and fear wasn't one that would leave her alone. Blake couldn't risk the possibility that Adam was still there, for whatever reason. If he saw Weiss, it was too possible that he would end up connecting the dots. "Just... get out of there. And make sure nobody's following you."

And there it was, the sound of a car door closing behind Weiss as she got into the car. There was the sound of another car door closing, and then Klein asking a quiet question in the background.

"What is going on, Blake?" Weiss asked. "It sounds like you're in trouble-"

Blake swallowed hard. "Just... trust me. I'll tell you everything, but I need to know that you're away from there."

"We're leaving." Weiss said quietly. "Should we meet you somewhere?"

Blake thought fast, and only one possibility came to mind. "I'm going to the hotel that we met your sister at." Blake said, taking in a deep breath. "Meet me there and we can figure out what to do next. I just... can't be there."

Weiss was quiet for far too long after that. Blake heard her utter a quiet okay, and then after that she hanged up the phone.

She was going to have a lot of explaining to do, very soon.


Weiss was scared. She didn't know what she was supposed to make of that phone call that she'd just gotten from Blake. She seated herself just across from Coco in the back of the car and took a deep breath.

Outside, there was a man watching them. Weiss was sure that he'd just recognized the branding on the car. Regardless, it was a little bit unsettling, all things considered. With what Blake had said, it left her feeling close to paranoid.

The car made its way off, and finally Weiss decided to explain.

"It was Blake." She said, looking between Neptune and Coco. "It sounded like there was something wrong, but I don't know what it could have been."

"She didn't say?" Neptune asked, blinking. "Because-"

"She just said that she would explain later." Weiss sighed, hugging herself slightly before looking at Klein and giving the instructions so that they could meet with Blake. He understood and adjusted where they were going.

Eventually they would find Blake though.

Blake had found a somewhat safe place to park, and she looked like she was on edge. She was standing there beside her motorcycle, occasionally tilting her body and looking up and down the road to check for... something. Or someone.

Klein parked the car and Weiss the first one to get out of the vehicle. She approached Blake, who stepped away from the car. The woman rushed towards them a little bit.

"Weiss!" Blake said, and she managed to sound like she was almost winded. "Did anyone follow you?"

"What?" Weiss asked, her eyes widening. "What do you mean-"

Blake did her best to calm herself down as possible, if the way that she closed her eyes and took a deep breath was an indicator. She was clenching her hands into fists down at her sides. "I need to know that nobody followed you."

"What is going on?" Weiss asked, because that was scary. The fact that the discussion had turned immediately towards stalking wasn't good. "Blake, you're scaring me!"

Blake looked back to her bike and let out a quiet sigh. The good thing was that it was parked. "I'm going to go and bring my bike back to my apartment." Blake said finally. "If you could get Klein to follow and pick me up, then I'll explain."

Weiss blinked and looked from Blake to the road before sighing quietly. "Alright." She said finally. "We'll do that."

"Thank you." Blake said, going back to her motorcycle and climbing onto it before speeding off in the direction of her home. Weiss hesitated there by the roadside for a moment before turning and heading back to the car. She climbed in and looked to Klein.

"What is it, Miss Schnee?" Klein asked, glancing back at her over his shoulder.

"We're to follow Blake to her apartment and pick her up once she's parked." Weiss said calmly. "If you could?"

Klein looked at Weiss, and the expression on his face seemed to be rather unsure. "Are you sure?"

"I am." Weiss said as she settled back into her own seat. Within moments they were back on the way, and Weiss looked between Coco and Neptune.

Both of them were silent, looking at each other like they were trying to decide who should speak first. Finally, it was Coco that decided to take the lead.

"Something is wrong." She said, stating the fact and relaxing back into her seat. "Has Blake ever done anything like this?"

Weiss shook her head. "No." She said, clenching her hands together in her lap. "This is the first time that Blake has done anything like this."

Neptune shifted uneasily in his seat. It was almost like he was squirming, tapping and drumming his fingers on his knee. "It sounded like she was in trouble."

"It did." Weiss admitted. "I don't know why Blake would be in trouble like that though." She looked down at her hands, where they were sitting there in her lap. She thought back on countless conversations with Blake, but nothing came to mind immediately. "She seemed to think we would have been followed."

Weiss' eyes narrowed. "And I don't know why someone would have been trying to follow me."

"Could it be because of your family?" Coco asked, leaning back in her seat a little bit more. "With the way that things are right now-"

"No, I don't think that's it." Weiss sighed as they pulled up in front of Blake's apartment. It was a little bit of a wait before Blake was there and joining them again. Weiss watched Blake exit the apartment building, and just waited.

Finally, Blake got in. She looked like she had changed into something that would be less conspicuous.

"Thanks." Blake said as she pulled the car door closed behind her. She settled into the seat beside Weiss. "I'm sorry about all of this."

Weiss nodded, because while she wanted to accept that apology, there was more to it. She didn't know that much about the situation, but she needed to know more if they were going to be able to move on.

"What's going on?" Weiss asked. She leaned forward in her seat to look up into Blake's eyes. Blake met her gaze, and her eyes slipped closed a moment later in a quiet sigh. "Because you need to tell me."

Blake nodded. "My ex somehow followed me to the place where we were going to meet." She said. She was clenching her hands together to make herself comfortable. "He works for The Fang too, and I couldn't..." Blake clenched her teeth, if the set of her jaw was anything to go by. "I couldn't risk him finding out about us."

Coco craned her neck, clearly doing her best to examine Blake based on the way that she pushed her sunglasses down on her nose. "Is this guy a creep?"

"You could say that." Blake said, and Weiss felt a strange spike of sadness. One that she couldn't quite understand, all that she knew was that it hurt and she hated it. "It'd be putting it lightly."

Weiss didn't quite know how she wanted to react to that response. It was more than enough to raise the hairs on the back of her neck and make her worry much more than she would have otherwise. Blake looked worried, and all that Weiss knew was that she needed to do something to help comfort her.

Not that Weiss really knew what she could do.

She reached over and placed a hand on top of Blake's. Blake understood and turned her hand, taking Weiss' hand in her own. Their fingers laced together, and Weiss squeezed ever so gently to make sure that Blake felt secure there. "Do you think that he would follow you?" Weiss asked, because she really needed to get inside of Blake's head.

"I think he would." Blake replied, shifting nervously in her seat. "I think that he found me because he can recognize my motorcycle anyways. He went in and found me, decided that he deserved the seat across from me, and started..." Blake shut herself up, shaking her head before glancing over at Weiss. "He wanted me to go back to working with him."

That told Weiss just about everything that she'd needed to know in itself. This was the partner that Blake and told her about, the one that she'd done infiltrations in the past with. The partner that Blake was working very hard to cut off from herself.

Weiss looked Blake in the eye, feeling completely stunned more than anything else. Blake looked at her with a weird look on her face. She was doing her best to understand, but Weiss didn't like the anxiety that began to rise.

"Is... there something that I should worry about?" Weiss asked, keeping her voice down. "Blake?"

Blake looked from Weiss to the other two and she took in an audible breath of air. Weiss felt her heart sink in her chest, because there was no way that was good.

"Weiss," Blake began, hesitating on her name. "Is it true that your family is working on a fundraiser?"

Weiss was a little bit taken aback, because she hadn't really heard anything about a benefit of any sort. If there was something being planned, it was probably being done from within the company's board room. In that case, it meant that Weiss had been purposely locked out of the conversation.

And that left her unsure of what she was supposed to say.

"I... suppose that could be possible." Weiss said, clutching Blake's hands a little bit tighter. "What-"

"Wait." Coco cut into the conversation and locked her gaze onto Weiss. "What do you mean they could be?"

"Nobody's said anything to me about it." Weiss replied, like that was going to be enough to excuse this all. "If something is going on, then..."

Blake looked between the others. "I have to ask because it's possible that there will be someone coming to the benefit for the sake of..."

It was scary to think about, whatever was being planned. Weiss didn't have even the slightest clue as to what she was supposed to do. If she went to someone that would be involved in the planning of such an event, then she knew that she would find herself in a position where she had no choice but to give up the information about how she'd garnered that information. In doing so, Weiss would have no choice but to inform the people that were in charge of her future that she was seeing a reporter from The Fang on a regular, even romantic basis.

"Blake?" Weiss asked, knowing that there was the sound of distinct apprehension creeping into her voice. "What is going on?"

Blake looked between them all, and Weiss felt the car roll to a stop. She looked out the window quickly and saw that Klein had decided to take them somewhere that was relatively out of the way. He'd parked them in a garage near the hotel that they'd decided was going to be their dinner place. And that should have been a comfort to Weiss, but it wasn't.

She didn't know that it could ever be.

Finally, Blake decided to just give up the information that she was so desperately dancing around.

"Adam-" She began, "My old partner. He's from the more... radical side of The Fang's reputation. He has his reasons to hate SchneeCorp, but those aren't important. It seems like he's convinced that SchneeCorp's charitable foundations are corrupt. And if they aren't, he'll make it look that way."

"Where is he getting that idea?" Weiss asked, because she'd never heard of such a thing. It was a rumor that had clearly escaped her for some amount of time, assuming that it was a rumor. Despite everything, and her wanting to think good things about her father's company, it was hard to believe that they were squeaky clean across the board. If her grandfather were still in the picture it would be different, but he'd died before Weiss had been born. "I've never-"

"I don't know." Blake said, her eyes snapping straight to Weiss' face. "I'm going to do what digging I can to find out, but if this is true, then that benefit needs to be looked after. Perhaps with private security or something. I can get photos of him for you to hold onto just in case he tries going, but-"

"But?"

Blake closed her eyes, collecting herself. "Adam is crafty, and I doubt that he'd go alone. He has a partner by the name of Onyx, but I don't know if they'll be working together on this one."

Weiss nodded slowly, not at all sure of how she wanted to react to what Blake had just said. Knowing that there was going to be something for them to worry about was one thing, but for now-

She hesitated and looked to the front of the car before knocking on the partition to sell away their privacy. "Klein?" Weiss asked. "Are you listening?"

"I am, Miss Schnee." Klein responded, rolling the partition down and looking back at the four of them in the back seat. "And I must say, this is all very troubling."

Weiss nodded. "Would you be able to find a way to get this information into the appropriate hands?" Weiss asked her family's butler. She knew that he wasn't necessarily going to be closely linked to everything that went on in this potential benefit, but Weiss could trust that Klein would know who to talk to.

"Of course." Klein responded, with a nod of his head. His gaze strayed over to where Blake was sitting, and Weiss followed it to look at Blake's expression. "Would you be able to get more information with regards to this matter, Miss Belladonna?"

"I don't know." Blake said, after a rather long moment of hesitation. Like she was doing her best to weigh the possibility that she would make this situation more dangerous in the long run. "I'm not exactly looking to hunt down Adam but..." Her voice trailed off for a moment, and Blake had a rather distant look on her face before she allowed herself to continue. "I think that I might know somebody that would be able to help us, though."

"Who?" Weiss asked, blinking and feeling a rather sudden spike of apprehension.

"My editor." Blake said finally. "Ilia Amitola. She's a little bit more moderate by comparison and..." Her voice trailed off for a long moment. "Adam mentioned her. I don't know why, though. I'll see whether or not she's able to help us at all, and if not-"

"You have my number." Klein said. "As soon as you know, please contact me directly and I will be sure to get whatever our security will need to know into the proper hands."

"Good." Blake said. She reached for her pocket and Weiss watched as she pulled out her phone and went straight to her photos. Weiss cocked her head to the side, curious, and watched as Blake pulled up a couple of photos that she'd apparently had stored on her phone for some time. "For now, these might be all I can give you." Blake said, turning her phone to show the photographs one by one.

Klein nodded. "Send them to myself and Miss Schnee, if you could." He requested, holding his head up high.

"Right." Blake said, and moments later Weiss felt her phone vibrate to tell her that the message had arrived. All in all, everything that she'd learned so far that day was far from comforting. It didn't exactly make up for how nervous it all made her. It didn't make Weiss think that the benefit would be any safer, whenever it ended up being.

The worst part was that Weiss knew for a fact that she was going to have no choice to wait it out, and Weiss hated that in about every way that was possible.

There was another awkward quiet that fell over the space. Weiss looked from Klein to Blake, and then to her friends. Finally, her gaze tracked to the large building outside and that told her that it was probably for the best if they at least tried to go out and take care of some things.

"Klein?" Weiss asked, blinking and looking to the man. "Should we be able to go inside?"

"Of course, Miss Schnee." Klein responded. "You know that you just have to call, and then you'll be able to go."

"Thank you, Klein." Weiss answered as she climbed out of the car. The others followed after her. Klein led the way inside to get them checked in for the evening, and then once the rest of them were in the room, Weiss took a seat on the large bed.

The others all did the same, and Weiss saw Neptune reaching for the television remote. At the same time, Coco was reaching for the room service menu, since they were going to have to make up for the fact that they'd been planning to eat together somehow.

Lastly, Weiss looked up at Blake and then pat the space on the bed beside her.

Blake didn't say anything, she just took the seat at Weiss' side and the two of them ended up curled together for the most time. Dinner would come, and eventually Neptune and Coco went back to Coco's room for the night.

They'd said something about wanting to give Blake and Weiss some privacy.

Weiss didn't know how she felt about any of it, but she was at the very least willing to take the chance for herself and Blake to have some time to themselves.

The biggest surprise of all ended up being that the two of them went to bed together in the same place.

And somehow, despite everything, Weiss managed to feel safe through it all.

It wouldn't last.