She woke up near the end of the trip, the sun sinking heavy in the sky. They both hadn't gotten a lot of sleep last night, and they'd woken up early to drive all day. Weiss wished she'd had the foresight to book a hotel in advance so they didn't have to drive back home in the dark. Stirring in her seat and trying to unglue her eyes, she stretched as much as she could, yawning and looking around to get their bearings.

They were close, now, at a little seaside town half-dead from the winter time lull in tourist revenue. The GPS told her they were 35 minutes away from their destination. They passed through the main street and started getting further out to the lonelier areas where the locals made their homes. Far from the places where the tourists congregated. Blake's hand found the back of her neck, the callouses rough and familiar, the gesture protective and safe. "You woke up just in time," she said, giving her a little squeeze. Weiss took her hand to kiss the back of her knuckles.

"I told you to wake me up so I could drive some of the way," she muttered.

"You tell me to do a lot of things." Blake's voice was dry, but she shot her a genuine smile to let her know she was kidding. Weiss didn't laugh; she was too nervous to laugh, checking her reflection and appearance in the vanity mirror of the passenger side. "There are a few bed and breakfasts here if you want to do this tomorrow morning." She paused. "Or not at all."

"We're already here," Weiss said, "We might as well get this over with as soon as possible."

Opening up the glove compartment, Weiss took out a manila folder, the edges crumpled from misuse and the cramped quarters of their rented car. Over and over and over again she checked and double checked the information within, obsessively hunting for clues, for tips, for something other than just a name and an address and an occupation and a picture of a woman who looked just like her.

They had come to find Weiss' mother, whom she hadn't seen since she walked out on them when Weiss was only thirteen.

To be completely honest, there was no reason she decided to do this now. No long withheld desire finally springing free from the confines of her heart, no tragic story or health issues that needed addressing. She had just mentioned to Blake one day— My mother? I don't know where she went. She just left us and never came back-- and two weeks later her wife had wordlessly gave her the envelope she now clutched with both hands, fidgeting and twisting the paper until she accidentally tore the edge.

"Do whatever you want with it," Blake had told her. "No pressure either way."

The street lights turned on, the road so tiny and so underused that there was no divider between the lanes. More than once they had to carefully twist around another car heading the opposite direction, Blake trying not to drive them over into a ditch filled with bilgewater as the locals honked at these lousy tourist drivers. It was only when they had to do it again, crawling to an almost stop to pass another car, that Weiss looked up from the photo in her hands to see the exact same face through the front window of the other car.

She froze as her mother drove around them, and then past them, and then left them behind.

"Stop the car!"

Her wife slammed on the brakes, snapping them both painfully against their seatbelts. She struggled with the door for a few seconds, forgetting how to use her hands until she tumbled outside, waving the folder high after the retreating car. For a moment she cursed herself in every language she knew, furious and terrified in equal parts. She had come too late, if they had drove sooner, or faster, or if they hadn't taken so many pit stops, or if she just done a millions things differently she wouldn't have found herself chasing after her mother's car like she had done when she was nothing but a stupid child and—

But this time it was different.

The car stopped, engine idling a few dozen yards away. And then the reverse lights flashed on, and it zipped back faster than it should have. Just as she was about to dive out of the way the car skidded to the side, sloppily halting with one wheel over the side of the road. Fumbling out of the car, the other woman stared at her with one hand on top of her sun hat, the other trembling as it pulled out a pair of glasses from where they were folded over the bustline of her shirt.

"Weiss?" she said, letting her hat go to close the car, and another gust of wind snatched it right off the top of her head, letting a wave of grey-silver hair tumble down her back. Her heels clicked on the cement, striding over to her so fast that Weiss realized she didn't know what she was going to say, or do, or what she expected to happen, or anything at all. She would have been hard pressed to remember her own name if her mother didn't say it again. "Is that you?"

"Yeah," was all Weiss said. And then she cleared her throat, heart racing as she heard the door of their own car slam behind her, Blake approaching. Reaching behind her blindly, she found Blake's hand already on its way to meet hers and pulled her close, gesturing between one and the other. "I'm— this is my mom, Blake."

Her mother paused just before them, looking at each of them with an unreadable expression.

"…Did your father send you?" she asked at last.

Bristling uncomfortably, Weiss just shook her head in a tight no. "We came on our own. I wanted to see you."

Breaking in through the awkward silence, Blake extended her hand. "Hello ma'am," she said. "I'm Blake. Weiss is my wife."

"Alba," her mother said distantly. Then she looked to Weiss. "You're married?"

"You're stuck in a ditch," Weiss said, nodding to her car. "Wanna fix that? Were you headed somewhere?" She clutched harder onto Blake's hand, hard enough that she trembled from exertion. "Do you want us to come back another time?"

Do you want me here at all?

Alba ran one hand through her hair. It was veiny and thin, like Weiss' hands, so thin light seemed to shine through it. Dark, deep lines etched across her face, and her hair was more silver than white, but she was still beautiful for her age. "I was just returning some books to the library," she said. "Do you— you can follow me back home. Would you like to stay for dinner? I could cook something." Her throat bobbed. "Oh, this is strange. Weiss, is that really you? You're such a big girl now."

Now that Weiss thought about it, it was a surprise Alba recognized her at all. Between the suit, the years between their last meeting, and the fact that Weiss had long since adopted a boyishly short pixie cut as her signature 'look', there was hardly anything left of the little girl she'd been. "I'm a huntress," was all she could say.

The crow's feet at the corner of her eyes deepened in a huge, glowing smile. "You made it?" she said, taking another cautious step forward. "You made it to Beacon?"

Pride bloomed in her heart as she nodded. "Yes! That's where I met Blake. That's when I—" she faltered. "That's when I cut ties with father."

Her hands idly patted the back pockets of her jeans, pulling out a carton of cigarettes and lighting one up. The movement was smooth and second nature, the kind that forms after years of a long nurtured habit. "I take it that's not a coincidence," she said, smiling tightly. "Far be it from me to suggest something unkind about your father, but—"

"Oh, by all means," Blake said, her unbound ears twitching freely on the top of her head. "Feel free to get as unkind as you like."

"In that case, that must have been a real kick in the balls for that racist dumbfuck," Alba said. Weiss laughed so suddenly she spat, a cackle tearing free from lips she hadn't realized were pinched tight with nerves. Alba grinned uncertainly at them, but her posture was a lot more relaxed now. "Why don't you girls follow me home? We have a lot to catch up on."

OoOoOo

Alba got married when she was sixteen years old and had Weiss two years after that, she told Weiss over coffee. They both took it black, but Weiss had developed the habit of adding just a spoonful of sugar after too many years working closely with Ruby. Weiss quietly did the math; by the time she was a fully fledged huntress, Alba had a toddler on her hip.

Her parents had been in love at one point, purportedly. Alba wasn't anywhere close to being the kind of wife the Schnees expected or desired, the class gap wide enough to eventually cause the schism between them that led to their divorce. But once she left, with promises that Weiss would be shared with equal custody, the Schnee family came down on her with all the fury and mindless hatred of an avalanche. The most powerful and skilled lawyers money could buy labeled her unfit for motherhood, or custody, or any kind of interaction with her daughter at all, and private thugs made it clear what would happen if she brought herself anywhere near the Schnee heiress.

Weiss listened to it all with a growing grim certainty that it was all 100% true. Even if Alba wanted to lie, or if she had made up parts of the story to be more charitable to her, Weiss would have believed it all in a heartbeat. It sounded just close enough to something her family would do that none of it rang as an exaggeration at all.

"So that's that," Alba said, crushing her third cigarette out on a crystal ash tray. "I fought for you, Weiss. I really did. I went bankrupt just keeping the lawyers paid. But—"

"It's okay," Weiss said shortly, still holding onto Blake's hand under the table with an iron grip. "I don't… it's okay. It's over. It's been over for a while."

She wondered if Alba was a chain smoker all the time, or if she was just acting out of the same kind of nerves that brought her to hold onto Blake's hand with a death grip. Either way, she was on cigarette number four, looking at the two of them with her blue eyes narrowed in thought. "When was the last time you spoke to your father?" she wanted to know.

"Just before we got married," Blake answered.

"And that was…?"

The huntresses looked at each other, thinking the same thing. There was a lot there that they couldn't share with Alba, not yet. Maybe not ever. "Six years?" Weiss ventured at last. "Almost six years ago. Not too long after graduation."

Alba smiled wryly. "Couldn't handle living in sin, eh? Not that I'm really one to talk."

Her pale skin turned bright red. "Mother!"

"What? I'm glad Blake made an honest woman out of you!"

Not saying anything, Blake kept one hand tight over her mouth as though she were just listening with rapt attention. But her shoulders shook with barely contained laughter. "So what else, what else?" Alba asked eagerly, sitting back in her chair and throwing one leg over the other. "Tell me more! How'd you meet? Any kids? A huntress! My daughter, a real huntress. What's the pay like for a job like that?"

As they continued to talk, Weiss felt the memory of their life together slide into place. She remembered how bold her mother had been, how brash and loud. How much she admired her will, how she channeled her when she went to fencing lessons. And she remembered having it all stripped away, the lessons doubling up in her mother's absence, the etiquette of a proper young lady drummed and drilled into her until she felt nothing else, remembered nothing else. And one last thing—

"One kid," Blake said, pulling out her scroll and picking out a picture to give to Alba. "Her name is Eve. We left her at home with a friend while we came to see you."

"Eve," Alba said, sounding distant as she looked at her grand daughter. White hair, and blue eyes, and two sets of ears. "So she's a faunus too, huh? But she looks so much like Weiss…"

"I carried her, but she's both of ours," Weiss said.

Then she jumped as Alba slapped a palm on the table, glaring at her daughter angrily. "Weiss!" Alba said, lips pressed thin. "Oh Weiss, a baby? How could you! Have a little sense!"

Rudely rocketed out of the sense of safety she had been building, a sharp, cold anger flared in her at the sudden change in attitude. Was a faunus daughter-in-law only okay as long as the children weren't mutts? Was she trying to say that she, a grown woman with a job and a wife, was not a suitable mother when Alba had been barely more than a child herself when she had Weiss? A whole row of insults and stinging reprimands and guilty, tear-stained shouts almost broke through the dam until she saw Alba was grinning at her.

"What," Weiss said stiffly, "Is wrong with Eve, exactly?"

"Eve? Nothing's wrong with Eve, she looks like a little angel." Alba gave the scroll back to Blake. "But you! Weiss, you're a stick! You've got my build, and I nearly bled to death giving birth to you. Why didn't Blake do it? Now she's got some hips that make me jealous. Those are some child bearing hips, I gotta say."

"Mother," Weiss said again, and this time Blake couldn't pretend she wasn't laughing. "Please don't talk about my wife's hips?"

"Well, she's not wrong," Blake said.

"Don't encourage her."

"I'm serious!" Alba kept on, waving her lit cigarette dangerously about. "Blake, darling, please! Tell me you'll be a good wife and carry the next one!"

Next one? Weiss was almost tempted to tell her to slow down. Sitting back in her own chair, Blake just rolled her neck to get the kinks out of it. The tattoo on the side of her neck rippled,the dark flames of her sigil standing out against taut muscle. She knew it as a sign Blake was relaxed, after seeing it a million times before, and it put Weiss at ease to see it. "Alba, there's only so much I can do," she said, sounding demure. "You don't know what it's like arguing with her when you're married to her."

"You poor soul," Alba tutted. "Bless you. Bless your heart."

Great. It was her destiny, it seemed, to be surrounded by women who enjoyed teasing her. Trying and failing not to smile around her cup of coffee, she listened to them talk, feeling content to simply be in their presence. At one point, Alba reached across the table to take her free hand, squeezing it tightly.

It was so warm.