"-which we ended up finding your working prototype time machine and the blueprints on how to use it. Sure, a normal person would have probably chalked it up as a broken project from a crazy old guy, but we were literally so desperate to try anything, we didn't even question whether or not it would've worked. We just hoped." I explained to Ozpin on how I was able to come across a time traveling machine.

Ozpin nodded in silence, a contemplative look on his face the entire time as he held the gun that brought me here.

Younger Ross had a troubled look on his face ever since I explained the terrible and violent events that'd take place in the future.

"So that's how I ended up here. All because of that thing over there." I finished expositioning, nodding at the gun in Ozpin's hands. "Any questions so far? Need me to repeat anything?"

Younger Ross raised his hand.

"You know, you can just ask me what's on your mind instead of raising your hand. We're not in a classroom." I told him.

"Right, sorry." He awkwardly apologized, before asking, "So, uh, even though you've just explained to us about how… fucked up the future is, you being here means that you're going to stop that from happening, right? You're going to do your best to stop the war and make everything stay normal?"

"Well, that is the plan. There's still much more to it than that, though. I haven't told you guys everything, just a brief explanation on why and how I got here. I still have some things I need to talk about alone with Ozpin, Glynda, and the rest of the other adults." I answered.

"Wait, why just them? Aren't you going to tell me any of this? I mean, I probably play a big role in all this, right?"

I scratched the back of my head, picking my words carefully. "See kid… um… there are just some things that aren't meant to be… known by other people just yet. Sensitive information that only Ozpin and I could understand. It's probably safer for you if you didn't know what I'm talking about."

"But isn't the fact that you knowing all of this would mean that I eventually come to know of it myself, since you're technically me? Wouldn't it be even more safe if you told me what I was going to already know?"

"Yeah, don't play the time travel shenanigans on me, kid. I'm still not telling you everything just yet." I deadpanned.

"Damn it." He cursed.

I turned my head over to Ozpin. "What about you Ozpin? Do you have anything to ask me?"

When I asked that, he abruptly stood up from his seat. "Yes. A lot of things, to be precise. But I… need some time to digest everything you've just told me." Pocketing the time travel gun into his coat, he prepared to walk out of the room. "Please, remain here and get rested. When I'm ready to speak further with you, I'll call you up to my office. Is that clear?"

"Affirmative." I nodded seriously to his demand.

Then he left.

So there I was, alone in a room with my own self, waiting for my aura levels to recover, wearing a drafty patient gown, and stuck to a bed while connected to tons of outdated (to me at least) machinery.

It was uncomfortably silent.

I was sort of just staring at my other self while he was sort of just staring back at me.

Awkwardly.

Silently.

Awkwardly silently.

He was fidgeting around and twiddling his thumbs, clearly wanting to ask me something.

It was really weird to see my own social awkwardness in person. How long has it been since I grew out of my social shell?

Guess I'd better start off the conversation, then.

"If you keep twiddling your thumbs like that, they'll eventually catch on fire."

"Oh! Um, right..." He stopped, looking startled by me initiating the conversation first.

"Why are you being so quiet and intimidated around me? You were acting just fine when Ozpin was around." I asked, genuinely curious about what was going on in my own head from the past.

"Well… it's just… really weird to talk to myself." He explained. "I mean, one day I was just living out my life like normal, and now suddenly I'm in a situation where I meet someone who says to be me from nine years in the future, and dropping a huge bomb on me about how there's going to be a war that'll kill thousands of people and cause the entire world to end. Like, how do I even properly react to that?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean kid. I'll be honest, I wasn't exactly expecting to go back in time and meet a teenaged version of myself either. But, you know, when life gives you lemons, you roll with what you got." I shrugged.

"Life doesn't normally give you lemons that come from the future and tell you about how the world's going to end!" He rebutted.

"This is a really weird metaphor."

"IT IS WEIRD."

…

Now back to awkward silence again.

Not sure I did a good job at improving the tension in the air.

…

"Hey, uh…" Oh, he was going to start off the next conversation. Cool. "I took a peek at your journal." He said, taking out and handing my journal to me.

"Oh." Craptastic. How was I going to explain myself out of this one? "I see… How much did you look inside?" I asked, taking the journal back.

"To be honest, I only looked at the picture from the first page. I was a bit too freaked out to look over the rest of it."

Oh, okay. That was convenient. So he didn't know about the kill list I made. That was good.

"So… you really are me from the future, huh?" He asked again, already knowing the answer.

I still nodded anyway. "Yep. Surprise." Insert obligatory party blowout noisemaker here.

"I have… so many questions that I want to ask you. I just can't seem to pick which one to ask first."

"Hey, just take your time kiddo. It's not like I'm gonna go anywhere soon." I reassured him.

I waited patiently for him to decide what to ask, observing him as he had some sort of internal conflict expressed on his face.

Eventually, he made up his mind and asked me what I was expecting him to ask. "Everyone in the photo… what happened to them? Some of them looked so different and weird. Yang had a metal arm thing, Weiss had an eyepatch, and Blake had cat ears on her head. What's up with that?"

"Hm… So I ended up during the time before you guys ever met Penny and Sun." I muttered to myself.

"Uh, what?"

"Don't worry about it. Anyways, I guess it's safe enough to answer those questions." I cleared my throat, and began explaining. "At some point in the relatively near future, something bad happened at Beacon. Something really bad. Our sister got herself in a fight that she didn't have a chance in winning. She was trying to do her best to save Blake from getting killed, and… she ended up losing her arm to a certain man that I've quickly grown to hate." I ended bitterly.

"Someone cut off her arm?!" He repeated, predictably shocked.

"Yeah. It took her a while to recover, but she eventually found someone to make a really good prosthetic metal arm. Still though, that day really traumatized her."

"Who the hell was the guy that took her arm?!" He asked, understandably pissed off.

"This might be a bit too early for you to know, but the guy's name is Adam Taurus. He's the leader of the White Fang."

"Wait a minute, why was he going after Blake and my sister? What did they do that made this Adam guy want to kill them?"

"Well, the answer to that question would only make sense if I tell you a bit about Blake." I told him. "As you can obviously tell from the photograph, she has cat ears. That means she's actually a Faunus."

"A Faunus? I never knew that she was a Faunus. Why is she keeping that a secret from us?"

"That's a long and complicated answer that I'd rather you hear from Blake herself, to be honest."

"Okay, fair enough… But that still doesn't make any sense! If this guy was the leader of the White Fang, why would he try to kill Blake if she's a Faunus? Doesn't that go against the White Fang message of wanting every Faunus to be treated equally in society or something?"

"You wanna know the truth? I'll tell you why he wanted to kill Blake even though she's a Faunus. It's because he's a petty and despicable hypocrite, who only wanted to get back at her for breaking up with him because she found out that he was a fucking psychopath!" I found myself angrily shouting. "He didn't care about equality for Faunus, all he cared about was killing as many people as he could get away with and to oppress humans every chance he got! He was a lying scumbag that sold out his own group by working with the very same humans that he vowed to never ever work with! When I finally find that bastard again, I am going to make him suffer absolute hell before I slowly watch the life get sucked out of his-" It was at that moment I realized that I was probably freaking my younger self out.

I paused in my rant to glance at- Okay, yep, definitely freaked out. I should probably take it down a notch.

"Sorry about that. I just really hate that guy." I awkwardly scratched my head.

"Yeah, I think that was obvious from the get go."

"Right. Sorry…" I apologized again, before trying to change the topic to something else. "So anyway, about Weiss's eyepatch-"

"Ross? Are you alright? I can hear you yelling." A very very familiar voice called from behind the door.

It was the same voice that comforted me every time I went to sleep after mom died. The same voice that always teased me and poked fun at my expense. The same voice that always screamed in anger whenever I accidentally messed with her hair.

It was Yang's voice.

I was going to see her alive again.

I was going to see everyone alive again.

Young Ross looked at me with a worried expression. "Should I let the others in? Are you okay with that?"

I didn't hesitate to let him know how much I was more than 'okay' with that. My head nodded so frantically, I couldn't think straight.

"Alright then. I'll go introduce you to them." He said, noticeably nervous from how I responded.

As he moved up to open the door, I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. Memories of everyone I knew and loved started flowing into my head. Memories of Yang giving me a playful noogie, of Weiss promising me how she'll be more of a team player from now on, of Blake purring whenever she let me pet her ears.

Memories of Jaune giving me his hand so I could pick myself up from the ground, of Pyrrha saving my life when I forgot to bring my weapon to stop a robbery, of Ren calming walking me through the steps and positions to help me master hand to hand combat, of Nora and I going around campus and pranking as many students as we possible could.

Memories of all of us just sitting around in our dormitory lounge room, doing nothing but hanging out with each other.

Younger me slightly cracked opened the door, instantly being barraged with questions.

"You alright, lil' bro?"

"What was all that yelling for?"

"Why did Ozpin leave?"

"Guys guys, everything is fine. Ozpin left to think about some stuff. I'm just sitting here talking to the window diver guy." He expertly calmed them down.

"Wait, he's awake?!" I could hear Weiss exclaim.

"What's he like? Did you find out why he looked so much like you?" Yang asked.

"Does Ozpin know who he is?" Blake wondered.

Younger Ross gave a curious glance back at me, before telling them, "You guys should probably meet him yourselves."

When he opened the door wider, all of the girls paused as they saw me looking at them.

Each and every one of their faces looked exactly liked I remembered them nine years ago.

I felt too scared to close my eyes. I was afraid that if I did, I'd wake back up in the real world, where everyone was dead, and there was nonstop war. I was afraid that this was all just an elaborate dream, and that I'd be cruelly woken up and never see my family ever again. I didn't want to ever wake up from this dream.

And yet… this wasn't a dream, was it? There they were, all alive again, right in front of my very eyes.

Yang was the first to decide to just walk up to me and say hi. "Hey there, Window Diver. Name's Yang. Nice to meetcha!"

Weiss was second to come near me, but only to chastise Yang. "Why are you greeting him so casually, like you're talking to a new neighbor?! This man is a complete stranger that just suddenly crashed in uninvited to school property!" When she finished, she faced me with a nostalgia-inducing angry face. "You are a suspicious individual that's being held in Beacon's custody until our headmaster decides what to do with you. You better watch and behave yourself, or there will be consequences for insubordination!"

Weiss was then roughly pulled aside by the shoulder, as Yang got up into her face. "Hey, chill out Ice Queen! What's your deal with him?"

Weiss suddenly acted all indignant as she responded with: "What's my deal? This lunatic literally crashed through the cafeteria building's window, causing a huge mess everywhere, and got condiments and tea stains all over my school uniform!"

"That doesn't mean you can act all high and mighty towards him! You're being rude!"

"Excuse me? Since when has a brain-dead buffoon like you ever started caring about being rude?!"

"Why don't you say that again to my goddamn face, ya ice-cold bitch?!"

"I already am, you brain-dead bimbo!"

"Seriously guys? Again with the arguing? Come on, I told you both that you need to start learning to get along!" In went my younger self, trying to break up the fighting and start the damage control.

As this went on in the background, Blake walked up to me and politely nodded in greetings. "Hello. I'm Blake. You're going to have to excuse us. We're normally more stable than this, I swear."

As I kept watching the madness in front of me, I couldn't help but smile. Then I started to grin. Then it turned into giggling, until the setting was so familiarly ridiculous that I couldn't help but laugh.

I laughed and laughed and laughed.

Nine years worth of memories all came rushing back at once. All the times I ever had to stop Weiss and Yang from clashing heads, all the adventures and missions we went on, all of our troubles, all of our reunions, all of our victories and failures, all of our comebacks.

I laughed and laughed and started to feel my gown getting wet.

"Hey, are you okay man? You're crying." Younger me asked in alarm as the others gave each other worried glances.

Without my smile ever leaving, I started wiping my eyes and felt my entire face soaked with tears.

But even then, the laughter and streams of tears wouldn't stop.

I tried to tell them that I was fine, "I-I-I'm okay guys. Heheh, really! It's just been so long since I've felt like this! I've always told myself th-that I was going to have to g-g-get used to n-n-never being able t-to… to… t-... see any of you ever again…"

Slowly, I felt my laughter slow down and degenerate into sobbing.

"I-I-I-I'm just so h-*hic*-happy right now… Y-You'd never believe how much I've missed you guys…"

It was then, for some reason, Yang decided to step closer to me. The way she looked at me was something I'd never expected her to do. It was something that I hadn't seen for a long time. It was the look of pure, genuine, sisterly worry.

I didn't know what caused her to reach out to me. Maybe it was my face. Maybe it was how I sounded. Maybe it was her instincts telling her to do so, deep inside her.

But when she reached out to me, she said my name like she already knew who I was.

"Ross?"

I clutched on to her like my life depended on it. I bawled and cried and shouted my little heart out.

For the rest of the evening, I held on to my big sister as I cried like the little baby brother that I was.

For that moment, everything was okay.

Welp, this was... weird.

Weiss and Blake both glanced at me with questioning looks.

Hoo boy, this is gonna be hard explaining by myself.

"You guys might wanna sit down for this. It's a doozy of a story."

For the rest of the evening, we'd watched a grown-ass man use my sister as a crying pillow.

For that moment, I found it was even weirder when I remembered that that grown-ass man was me from the future.

Meanwhile, Yang had the most terrified look on her face: "Somebody please help, I am so confused right now."

…

"But first I'm gonna get some cookies. Be right back."

"DammitRossgetbackhere"

AN: I feel like the pacing could've been better. What do you think about this chapter?