The light of the setting sun sparkled and shimmered like burnished gold on the waters of the bay. Seagulls spiraled overhead, and a ruddy orange light colored the trees lining the path Ruby and Weiss walked side by side on. They were taking their time, walking at a leisurely pace from the aquarium back to the parking garage lost in a world of their own.

"So you had fun?" Ruby asked. "It's still kind of hard for me to tell with you."

Weiss smirked. "Why?"

Ruby glanced at the other woman from the corner of her eye, and was caught off guard by how blindingly beautiful she looked in that moment. The fading sunlight danced in her snow-white hair and kissed her flawless face with a warm pastel glow. Ruby had to struggle to remember how to breathe and use the English language, but her thoughts were so jumbled she may as well declare them a new language dedicated to Weiss' picturesque visage.

"W-Well uh, you don't really express yourself I guess," Ruby said while scratching the back of her neck. "You don't smile all that often, so it's hard to tell when you're happy or not. You kind of look… angry all the time. Like, not that that's a bad thing! I mean I think it's kind of cool, because when you do actually smile it makes it so much brighter and prettier—I mean you make everything else pretty with you face, but uh… like, I don't know what I just said… yeah, I'm gonna shut up. Right now. Please ignore me."

Weiss suddenly turned her head the towards the horizon. She didn't immediately speak, but when she did her voice was terse if not a little nervous. "You talk fast a lot when you are excited. So I assume you enjoy today."

"Y-Yeah! That's what I meant to say, I had a lot of fun! With you. I had a lot of fun with you! You know?"

Weiss still didn't turn to look at her, almost as if she was hiding her face for some reason.

"But that's silly," Ruby thought to herself. "Why would she be doing that? She probably just likes the sunset."

"I have fun," Weiss finally answered.

"O-Oh, good!" Ruby managed to say. "That's awesome! I was kind of worried that you wouldn't like aquariums or fish or something. They're not really for everyone you know? Most people stick to zoos. Ooh! Have you ever been to a zoo?"

Weiss shook her head. "No."

"Oh. Huh, you've never been to an aquarium before, you've never been to a zoo, you've never been to like, any of the restaurants I talked about before. You really are from Russia, aren't you?"

Weiss turned her head and narrowed her eyes at her. "You think I lie?"

Ruby waved her hands back and forth. "No! No no, I was just like, I mean it just kind of hit me. I've never really been friends with a foreigner before, so it's just weird for me."

Weiss frowned as they crossed a small bridge over a waterway connecting to the bay. "You think I am weird then."

"No, that's not what I meant either." Ruby smacked her palm into her forehead. "Ugh, why is this so hard! I mean like… it's weird for me because I don't know how Russia works, but you're not weird at all. Does that make sense?"

It took a second, but Weiss nodded hesitantly. "In a way. You don't think I am weird?"

Ruby smiled and took a risk, pulling Weiss into a one-armed hug. "Nope, not at all. I think you're pretty cool."

Weiss stiffened up, but didn't attempt to shrug Ruby's arm off, so the brunette took it as a small victory.

"So you ever been to a movie theater?"

"No."

"Seriously? Wow, we are totally going sometime. How about the beach?

Weiss shook her head. "No."

Ruby's eyes went wide. "Have you ever been camping? Hiking? Snowboarding?"

"No, no, and I do not know what last one is."

"It's like uh, kind of like skiing, but with a single board attached to your feet instead of two."

"Ah, I have seen those before. But no."

"Wow, what the heck Weiss? What did you do in Russia, live in a barn or something?"

As soon as the words left her mouth, Ruby regretted them. Weiss frowned, and Ruby clenched her teeth and prepared for the other girl to pull away from her.

But all Weiss said was: "No."

Then they were at the parking garage, and they rode the elevator up to the fourth floor in silence. They had gotten inside Ruby's small black car, started the engine, and were halfway out of the parking garage when Weiss spoke again.

"My father very rich, Ruby. And I lived at his… estate, you would say."

Ruby was shocked. "Wait… you were rich? Like, you had a lot of money?"

Weiss hesitated before responding. "In English you would say… 'extremely'? Extremely rich. Our family used to be royalty, back in old days before the revolutions."

If Ruby had been shocked before, now she was struck dumb. "Wow. Like… wow. What? You were rich? Holy cow, like what happened?"

Weiss' response was, as before, silence.

Ruby fidgeted and fingered the steering wheel as she drove. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Her rigid posture. Her delicate way of eating. Her habit of cleaning things around her. Her aloof nature and cold personality. But then why had she been living in a dump?

After almost three whole minutes, Weiss replied. Ruby had been counting them on the car's time display.

"One day I will tell you why, Ruby. But you must forgive me. I am not ready to tell you."

Ruby grinned sheepishly. "Don't worry about it, I'm sorry for prying if anything. I didn't mean to be pushy."

"You weren't," Weiss replied. "I am just… this subject is… I do not know how to say it in English—but I will tell you. One day."

Ruby laid her hand on Weiss' and gave it a quick squeeze, and the other girl looked at her in shock. Ruby pretended not to notice.

"Don't worry about it Weiss. I can wait as long as you need."

It was Saturday morning. Ruby was off work, Weiss was sleeping on the couch, birds chirped and chattered outside, and the sun's rays filtered in through the blinds making the shadows they created come alive. It was the perfect recipe for a lazy Saturday morning, free of care and worry.

Or at least it should have been. Ruby's mind should have been peaceful, at ease, happy even. But it wasn't. It was tumultuous like an angry sea, loud and frightening. Her thoughts waged war on her feelings, wave after mighty wave clashing into one another at full force, then splaying back into the murky depths only to rise again more furious than the last.

Ruby was hunched over the small round table she ate on, with sheets of papers spread before her and her pen tapping restlessly on them.

It was tax season. That by itself was bad enough, but it had brought up other unwelcome thoughts when she had been going through them. She had been just about to claim Weiss as a dependent, when suddenly she realized she had no idea if Weiss was actually a legal immigrant. She didn't want to bring it up, at least not yet considering how peacefully Weiss was sleeping.

She bit the inside of her cheek and hypothesized a scenario where Weiss wasn't a citizen. What would happen if someone found her here? Would she be deported? And even worse, after calculating her budget, she found that she was steadily eating into her savings. She didn't make enough to support another person on her own. If she claimed Weiss as a dependent sure, the department would add to her paycheck. But she would have to go through the entire legal process for that, and Weiss would also… have to be a registered US citizen.

There was however a third option. Her mother had left her some money behind; Ruby didn't know exactly how much… But no. Those memories were too painful to go digging into. She had Weiss now. She needed to be thinking about the future, not the past. She needed to keep moving forward.

Should she ask Weiss to stop trying to find a job? The older girl was still searching for one, but with her barely passable English and lack of prior job experience it wasn't going too well. And even worse, what if Weiss wasn't a registered citizen, and a potential employer looked just a bit harder into her background records than they should? What if they decided to report their findings?

The idea of Weiss being taken away from her was one she couldn't stand. The mere thought made her stomach drop and her palms start to sweat. She realized now that her feelings for the Russian girl were far more than friendly, but she didn't know what to do about those either. Did Weiss like girls? And even if she did, could Weiss see her in a romantic light?

Taxes, citizenship, budgets, relationships, her mind was full to bursting. She didn't know what to do about any of it.

She was so buried in thought that she didn't notice that Weiss was up until the white-haired woman sat down in the chair opposite her.

"You are worried."

Ruby jolted, barely managing to grip the edge of the table to keep her chair from falling backwards. "Oh fuc—gosh dang it Weiss, you scared the crap out of me!"

Weiss smirked. "Shouldn't police officer have more awareness?"

Ruby let her head drop to the surface of the table, partly to cover up the papers so that Weiss wouldn't see them. She didn't want her to worry; Weiss had been through enough. "Y-Yeah, I just… ugh, sorry. I'm tired."

"On weekend? Normally you are not," Weiss replied.

"Yeah, I know. I've just… I've just got a lot on my mind I guess."

"Like what?"

Weiss' expression was open and honest, like she genuinely cared about Ruby's problems and wanted to help. Ruby sighed, realizing Weiss had a right to know. Well, the right to know some of it.

"Well, just taxes mostly. I've had to do a little budget work, and I realized that I'm starting to eat into my savings."

Weiss looked confused.

"As in I'm not making enough money to support the both of us right now. I could claim you as a dependent and start getting extra money from my job but…"

"But?" Weiss echoed.

Ruby stared the white-haired woman dead in the eye and summoned up all the courage she could muster. "Weiss, are you a legal US citizen?"

Weiss' expression didn't change in the slightest, but an almost imperceptible sadness danced in her eyes. "No. I am not. I… fled to your country. I ran here to escape something."

Ruby waited on baited breath to see if the mysterious woman across from her would reveal anything further, but Weiss just looked down at the table, silent and inscrutable.

Ruby sighed again, heavier this time. "So, yeah. Like, either you have to get a job to make some extra money, or I can claim you as a dependent. But I think you need to be a legal citizen for both of those."

Weiss didn't look up from the table. "I can always leave, you know."

Ruby felt suddenly angry, and she raised her voice, causing Weiss to flinch. "Weiss, listen to me. I'm not going to make you leave. Okay? So stop talking about it. It's not an option."

Weiss met her eyes for a brief second, and Ruby felt her anger fade away at the look she was met with.

Ruby put her head in her hands. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell. I know you're trying to help me out. You've been trying to find work at some pretty sketchy places that don't run background checks, right? Are you gonna keep trying?"

Weiss nodded.

Ruby put her hand on Weiss'. "Just be careful, okay? I worry about you."

Weiss looked down at the hand, then looked up at Ruby. Neither of them said a word for several seconds, then Ruby pulled her hand away.

The brunette coughed. "Okay, um don't worry. I'm gonna figure something. I can cancel my Netflix subscription and stuff. I can totally make this work."

She put on a bright smile for Weiss, and the other woman responded with a small smile of her own.

"Don't worry Weiss. We're gonna be just fine."

The following Monday Ruby was back at work. She sat in a Wendy's drive-through, restlessly tapping her fingers on the steering wheel while Penny hummed a cheery—and mildly annoying—tune from the passenger side. She had been hooked on a new show about pastel sharks and their megalodon princess, and hadn't stopped talking Ruby's ear off about it. Yet despite her obvious disinterest, Ruby continued to humor Penny's avid fascination by listening and giving short prompts to continue. It was strange, never in her life did she expect to get along with her, but here they were acting like two peas in a pod.

Penny was talking up a storm about the characters. And no matter how "interesting" her story was, her voice merely faded into the background. The constant buzz of Penny's jabbering helped numb the snide thoughts whispering in her ear, and for a single moment Ruby found peace of mind.

She was tired, and it hurt her eyes. It was almost 7:30 a.m.; the sun had risen a few hours ago. A row of trees on the other side of the drive-through lane thankfully shielded her from the harsh morning sun. Cars were slowly filling the streets, and she knew Weiss would be out looking for a job already. She couldn't stop thinking about the other girl. What was Weiss wearing today? What did she look like? What was she thinking? Was she thinking about her too?

Thn radio picked up.

"Five paul fifty-one, code 58 on West Brandon and Juniper."

"Copy that, five paul fifty-one en route," Ruby replied. When she said en route, she really meant that she would wait to get her food, and then be en route.

When Ruby made no move to back out of the drive-through, Penny spoke up. "Shouldn't we go to the call, friend?"

Ruby swiped her finger across the screen of the hard-box computer in between her and Penny. The details of the call were steadily filtering in to her as the dispatcher sent them to her.

"Nah, we're gonna get our food first. Code 58 isn't too serious, most of the time the caller isn't really sure about what they saw."

"Isn't code 58 a suspected assault though?" Penny asked.

Ruby sighed. "Like I said, the caller is probably just freaking out and saying stuff that they think they saw. And I'm pretty dang hungry."

The details scrolled across the screen. The caller saw the incident go down inside a local Spanish restaurant; they were apparently across the street when they thought they saw someone get 'assaulted' by the manager. The suspect was a 6"1' Hispanic male, and the victim was a… 5"4' woman with white hair.

Ruby reacted without a second thought. She threw the vehicle in gear and drove right over the barrier separating the drive-through from the road, clipping one of the trees and destroying a small hedge in the process. They sped out onto the street and Ruby flipped on the sirens. Her heart was pounding in her chest like a jackhammer.

"Is everything alright, friend Ruby? You are acting on irrational impulse, and I think you may have just broken several safety regulations exiting that parking lot. Is it the bathroom? Do you need to 'go'?" Penny asked nervously. "Would you like me to inform you of any public facilities nearby so you may relieve yourself?"

Ruby didn't respond, she didn't have time to. She grit her teeth and pushed down on the gas pedal. Cars in front of her swerved to the left and the right, doing their best to get out of her way. Penny seemed to enjoy the high speeds with the way her face looked, but then again Penny's facial expressions were limited to "sensational" and "error, does not compute".

Within a minute they were at the address. Ruby swerved the vehicle to a halt, threw the door open, and raced across the parking lot towards the restaurant. She didn't stop to see if Penny was behind her or not.

"Please, please, please don't be Weiss," she hissed to herself. She was acting completely on instinct right now—the instinct the protect the most important thing in her life. She couldn't lose her; she couldn't go back to being alone again.

She threw the door open and ran inside with her hand on her pistol. The patrons of the restaurant—what few remained—stared at her with wide eyes.

"Where is she!" Ruby screamed as she skidded to a halt.

"I-In the storage room in the kitchen," one of the waitresses answered shakily. "I don't know what Santiago was doing, but he just started hitting this girl and then—"

Ruby shoved her out of the way and ran through the kitchen. She spotted what had to be the door to the storage room. In a normal situation she would wait for backup, listen in through the door, draw her taser, see where Penny was, or any of a hundred different things she was supposed to do in this situation.

But this wasn't a normal situation. This was Weiss.

She slammed through the swinging door with her pistol drawn and at the ready. Inside was a broad, tan man with his back to her, screaming something in Spanish to a girl cowering in the back with her face hidden to her.

Ruby didn't let her momentum bleed off. The man was turning around to face the door when she slammed into him from the side, tackling him bodily to the ground. She wrestled with him for a few moments before she had him in an arm-lock, then brought her cuffs out and secured them around his wrists while he shouted and hollered.

"Shut up!" she screeched. "Stay on the ground! You have the right to remain silent, anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of…"

While she was belting out the Miranda rights that she knew by heart, she took a look at the girl cowering in the corner. It wasn't Weiss.

It was a girl with platinum blonde hair, but it was obviously dyed and not natural. Her face was rounder, her wide eyes were brown, and she looked completely terrified.

It wasn't Weiss.

Ruby finished the Miranda rights, then shut her eyes and let out a long, deep breath, letting all the tension in her body and the pent-up breath in her lungs out with it. Her voice was calmer when she spoke again.

"Miss, are you okay?"

The girl nodded.

"Good. Get up," Ruby snarled to the man on the ground.

Even though the girl wasn't Weiss, what the man had apparently done—and what she had seen him doing —was absolutely unacceptable. She pulled the man to his feet and started to march him outside.

Penny was waiting for her outside the storage closet looking puzzled. "Ruby?"

"Call it in," Ruby commanded. "And then take care of the girl. I'll handle this guy."

Penny nodded and slipped inside the closet. Say what you would about the orange-haired woman, but she was certainly a fast learner and an even more attentive listener. Maybe that was why Ruby liked her. She saw a bit of her former self in Penny's naivety, and in a world where you can hardly trust the people sworn to protect you, it was nice knowing Penny was right there with her.

Several minutes later the details of the case were emerging. Penny had questioned the girl in the closet as gently as she could. Apparently she had come to the restaurant looking for a job, and when Santiago learned of her complete lack of credentials, he had yelled at her to leave. She had argued and apparently given him attitude, and when she refused to leave he had taken matters into his own hands and tried to force her to leave. She fought back, it turned into a struggle, and Santiago—at least according to his side of the story—had lost his temper and assaulted the woman, dragging her to the backroom to "try to talk some sense into her".

Ruby had a different idea of what he had planned to do to her. He was sitting in the back of her vehicle right now, looking angry and not at all remorseful. She hoped he stayed in jail for a very long time. He already had a history of violence with his employees.

Other officers showed up and took him off of her hands, and soon Ruby was headed back to the station to turn in her vehicle and head home. But she couldn't shake the fear that gripped her heart like an iron vice.

What if it had been Weiss? The white-haired woman was in the exact same situation: looking for a job with little to no credentials. What if someone tried to take advantage of her, tried to force her into something? She could be kidnapped, raped, killed, stabbed, anything. People who were willing to take on illegal immigrants had questionable morals as a matter of course; who was to say what they would do to their employees in exchange for keeping quiet about their citizenship?

Her heart was beating restlessly, she was sweating under her uniform and bulletproof vest, and her fingers tapped an angry beat into the steering wheel. Her eyes glanced nervously back and forth down the street as she drove back to the precinct.

Penny kept shooting nervous glances at her, but she barely noticed. All she could see was Weiss in the backroom of some restaurant with an angry man standing over her, yelling at her to keep quiet as he beat her over and over.

Ruby waited sleeplessly at her excuse for a dining room table. She managed two hours scrolling through articles on her phone before she accidentally passed out for an hour. She woke up and slapped herself into alertness. She couldn't fall asleep yet; Weiss wasn't home. The poor girl didn't have a car, so she had to take the bus around the city to try and find a job.

And Weiss was doing it all for her… Ruby sighed and put her head in her hands. She had made up her mind as soon as she had gotten back into her apartment. This job search thing was over. She was going to claim her mother's inheritance, no matter how painful the memories might be. She needed it. Weiss needed it.

She wouldn't have Weiss out there on her own every day until she hopefully, maybe found a job to support her. She didn't know exactly how much money her mother had left her, but she hoped it was enough for them to be stable until she got Weiss her citizenship. That way she could get a real job.

She sat on the couch and watched mind-numbingly dull cable tv for three hours; she had cancelled her Netflix subscription.

She got up and stretched, picked up that book on her coffee table that she had been meaning to get to for weeks and read that for an hour. She looked at her watch as she put the book down. It was 4:00 pm. Weiss should be getting back soon.

She sat at the table and tapped her fingers for about ten minutes, until she realized that she would go crazy if she kept it up. Her stomach rumbled conveniently right then, and she realized that she hadn't eaten anything since she got back. At least cooking would give her something to do, even if it wasn't so much cooking as it was trying not to burn the apartment down while still producing something edible.

Googling a recipe for pancakes and ending up with a batch of strange, spherical looking dough balls—then eating them—occupied the better part of an hour. As she set her fork down, a nervous feeling settled itself in the pit of her stomach. It was nearly 6:00pm. Weiss should have been back by now.

She spent almost thirty minutes pacing the apartment, trying to figure out what to do. Weiss didn't have a cell phone so there was no way she could call her. She also didn't know where exactly Weiss was looking for jobs; she could be anywhere in the city by now, so searching for her was out of the question. For now.

Thirty minutes later it was 7:00pm, and she was close to hysterics. She hummed a nervous tune and rubbed her arms. Her thoughts were racing like a bullet train, back and forth and to and fro. The image of Weiss alone and cornered by a group of strange men was firmly lodged in her head by now; she couldn't get it out no matter how hard she tried.

She stubbed her toe on the coffee table while she paced around the living room. She hissed in pain and looked down at it, and suddenly her head was strangely clear. She had never been good at waiting. She liked to get out there and do things, to solve the problem and deal with the consequences later. She realized that that was exactly what she needed to do.

She grabbed her keys and was halfway to the door when she heard the sound of it being unlocked from the outside. Ruby stood in the tight little hallway between the kitchen and the front door as it opened. Weiss stepped inside, hung her key by the rack, and turned to face her.

"Ruby? What is wro-"

Ruby tackled her, wrapping her arms around the other woman as tight as she could and pressing her up against the wall. She buried her face in Weiss' shoulder and took deep, calming breaths.

"R-Ruby… what are—"

"Shhh," Ruby whispered.

She felt Weiss slowly reach up and wrap her arms around her waist. Her touch was so gentle. Ruby focused on quieting her mind and letting all of the fear go. Weiss was here, in her arms. She could hear her breathing and feel her heartbeat. She was fine, she was safe. She was safe.

She took one last deep breath and let go. She stepped back, and Weiss stared at her in confusion.

"Ruby? What was that for?"

Her accent made it sound like "vat vas that for".

Ruby smiled. "Nothing. I just got really worried about you while you were gone. I responded to a call with a girl with white hair and I kinda, heh freaked out and thought it was you."

Now that Weiss was here in front of her Ruby felt a little silly, and she sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck. "I mean, it seems kinda stupid now, huh? I kinda freaked out, sorry."

Weiss stared at her for a second longer, but Ruby didn't miss the smile perking up the corners of the white-haired woman's eyes.

"It fine Ruby. I missed you, too."

"Y-You did?" Ruby asked, feeling her heart beat a little faster.

Weiss nodded and moved to the kitchen. "Of course I miss my favorite American. Chto eto valovoy, what is this!"

Ruby followed her eyes to the mess of batter and flour on the kitchen counter. "Oh crap! I uh, made pancakes earlier. Or I tried. And I guess I forgot to clean it up…"

Weiss glared at her and pointed to a dish rag near the sink. Ruby grinned, embarrassed, and picked it up. She began scrubbing the counter clean while Weiss put the various bowls and utensils she had used into the sink.

"How did you survive before you had me," Weiss muttered as she started loading the dishwasher. "I swear you are like pig in sty sometimes. Always leaving mess. Never cleaning up."

"Hey!" Ruby giggled. "I clean up my messes! I mean it might take me a while. Or a few days. But I always clean up after myself."

"I remember how apartment was when I first got here. Weapon parts and old food everywhere. Prezrennyy.

"Hey no fair? What does that mean?"

"Find out yourself," Weiss replied. The white-haired woman closed the dishwasher and turned it on, filling the apartment with a dull rumbling noise. She turned around and leaned back against the counter as Ruby finished wiping it.

"You were out pretty late," Ruby said, turning to face Weiss. "Like later than normal. That's why I got worried."

Weiss' expression fell. "I tried hard looking for a job but… nothing. I found nothing, nobody would take me, no experience and no citizenship. It's big problem here."

Ruby looked at the floor. "Yeah, businesses are really stingy about that kind of thing ever since the state government started cracking down on illegal immigrants. But I've got good news."

"Good news?"

"Yeah," Ruby replied. "You don't have to look for a job any more. I'm just gonna crack into the inheritance my mom left me. It should be enough to get us by for a while until we can get you citizenship."

"You.. get me citizenship?" Weiss asked. Ruby couldn't miss the tiny glimmer of hope in her eye. "You want me to stay?"

"Well of course I want you to stay silly. So don't worry about getting a job anymore, I've got it covered."

Weiss frowned and crossed her arms. "You're sure?"

"Yeap, totally. Don't you worry about a thin- thi-" She tried to suppress a yawn, but failed.

Weiss narrowed her eyes. "You have slept today, yes?"

"Um, yeah totally."

The white-haired woman walked over and poked her in the chest. "No lying."

"I mean I… yeah, you're right. I haven't slept yet. I was too worried about you to sleep."

"Sleep now. No excuses."

"Oh c'mon, but I was thinking we could stay up and—hey!"

Weiss grabbed her by the arm and forcefully pulled her to the bedroom. Ruby could have overpowered the other girl with her training and conditioning, but it was Weiss, so she didn't even put up a fight. Part of her was imagining what else Weiss might be doing by pulling her to the bedroom, but she quickly shut those thoughts out.

Once they reached Ruby's bedroom Weiss clutched her by the shoulder and pushed her down onto the bed.

"Weiss, what are you—"

"Clothes off. Now."

Ruby's eyes went wide. "B-But-"

"Sleeping clothes. Pizhama, pajamas. Where you keep them?"

Ruby hesitated, then pointed to the top drawer of her dresser. Weiss opened it and pulled out Ruby's pajama pants and a black tank top, then tossed them at the brunette.

"I leave," Weiss said as she moved to the doorway. "When you are changed, tell me."

Ruby nodded, too tired at this point to do anything but comply. Weiss stepped outside and closed the door. She slipped out of her work clothes and threw them into a pile in the closet, changed her underwear too, then slipped on the tank top and pajama pants. They were white with pink polka dots—she had always found them adorable.

"Okay Weiss, you can—" she yawned again, covering her mouth, "you can come in."

The door opened and Weiss walked inside. Ruby sat on the edge of the bed.

"Well? Lay down," Weiss commanded.

Ruby smirked, confused, but did so. She slipped under the covers and Weiss promptly strode over and pulled them up to her shoulders, then tucked her in. Ruby had to stifle a giggle. Weiss was actually tucking her into bed. The white-haired woman finished, then looked at her. Her uncomfortably gorgeous face was dead-set and completely serious.

"You are… what is word, comfortable?"

"Yeah," Ruby said with a smile. "Comfortable."

"Good. Now hush. I sing song to help you sleep. Mother used to do it for me, and it always help. I consider myself decent singer."

Ruby's eyes went wide. Weiss could sing?

Weiss sat down on the bed. She opened her mouth and a gentle tune drifted out and filled the room. It was the clearest, most beautiful thing Ruby had ever heard in her life, like pure spring water on a mountaintop. To say Weiss was a decent singer would like saying Picasso was a decent painter. The girl had a voice an angel would be jealous of.

She sang in Russian, but there was such raw emotion and longing in the song that Ruby found herself able to follow along with no difficulty at all. And when Weiss changed the tune and started singing slower, softer, Ruby found herself not so much drifting into sleep, but being pulled into it. The song was a siren's call, dragging her down into the realm of dreams and memories. She couldn't resist it.

She was half-asleep, barely conscious when Weiss finished her song. Before she faded into blissful oblivion she felt the gentle touch of Weiss' lips, warm and soft on her forehead.

And then all was black.