In celebration of the new year, I will give you a double update. Happy New Year to all of you! (Even though I'm kind of late)

Chapter 29: Emotions

"I'm sorry for what happened. I know how it is to lose your family-"

"You know nothing!"

Serena was a patient person, she really was. But that comment… With that one comment he had crossed the line and she couldn't take it anymore.

She snapped.

"You think I don't know what it's like?" she asked, her voice a dangerously low tone and Adam realized that he had said too much.

"You think I don't know what it's like to be suddenly ripped apart from your family? Your sister and parents? To suddenly be all alone?!"

She was shouting by now, but she didn't care. She had kept this in for so long that she was finally ready to burst, spilling her emotions on the floor and not holding back.

"Well, listen up! I know exactly what it feels like! You think I was happy suddenly waking up in another world?! Hell no, I wasn't! I thought I had died, thought I had drowned in that damn cold river, but then I suddenly wake up somewhere in the middle of a damn forest and don't know where I am! I thought I was dead, that my parents had lost their daughter! But then, after living here, I suddenly find out that I'm still alive!"

She stood up, her eyes glaring at him and she could see him tense but didn't care. She'd had enough of all this. She wasn't prone to showing her emotions so openly, but she was finished with keeping them to herself. She needed to get this all out.

"Do you know what that was like?! Thinking you're dead only to be told that you're not but are just in some other dimension which shouldn't even be possible! I imagined my parents mourning over an empty grave, had nightmares about it that sometimes kept me awake at night! What do you think that was like?! I was all alone, didn't know where I was and what to do, so I secluded myself from people! I didn't want to be around others because they only reminded me of the family I now no longer have! I was scared and then I run into those monsters and almost get myself killed again!

"And then, to top it all off, I rescue some man in the forest and he doesn't even trust me! You were trying to kill me when you first woke up for God's sake! You treated me like I was garbage, like I wasn't even there and only because I am human! I can't change the fact that you're a Faunus and that people here apparently hate you, but I don't! You're just as much a human as me so stop treating me like I wasn't!"

She was breathing heavily, eyes ablaze and hands balled into fists, shaking with the sudden amount of anger that had overcome her. Adam was looking at her, lips slightly parted and eyes wide. He hadn't expected her to suddenly explode like that; hell, she had always struck him as the calm type. Seeing her like this had completely thrown him off and he didn't know what to say.

Serena could feel tears appearing in her eyes and rubbed at them in anger. Still they came and she ran out of the cave, leaving the shocked male behind and going deeper into the forest. When she was far enough, she stopped, let out a scream and finally let the tears flow. It felt good to finally let go of it all. I was the one telling him to get rid of negativity when I had a lot of it in me myself, she thought. She sat down on a rock and let her head hang, letting her emotions reign freely and not caring anymore if anyone saw her.

Adam was still sitting in his place, mouth still agape and eyes wide. He finally recomposed himself and, thinking about what she had said, felt ashamed. Yes, he felt ashamed. Ashamed for treating her like he did the first few days he had been there. She had taken care of him so well, had treated his wounds and not once said something about him being a Faunus and member of the White Fang and yet he had treated her in such a way.

She knew what the White Fang was, knew what they did. She could have told him to leave, that she would not take care of a criminal, but she hadn't. She had treated his wound and shown him so much kindness that she was almost like a saint. And now she was even willing to teach him something that no one else could. And this was how he repaid her?

I really am the worst.

And he had totally forgotten just how young she was. She was only nineteen, three years younger than him, and had gone through a lot in a short span of time. He knew what it was like to lose family, but he didn't know what it was like to lose them, thinking you had died, only to find out that you hadn't and realize that, although you were healthy and alive, you could never see them again. He could only imagine what it would feel like. It was one thing to know that they were dead, but another to never get back to them.

He had forgotten just how emotional and fragile girls tended to be and was amazed that she had all kept it inside her for so long. It seemed like this was the first time she had ever really spoken about how she felt to someone else and he couldn't help but feel that he should have done something to comfort her. He wasn't good at it, he knew that, but was it really so hard to say at least one nice thing?

Deciding that he had the chance to make up for it all now, he got up and went in the same direction that she had left in, following the trace that she had left behind. He spotted her sitting on a rock, body slumped over and head hanging low in defeat. He didn't like to see her like this; she had always held herself with a certain self-confidence, a complete opposite to the position she was in now.

Going up to her, he noticed her body tense at the notion of someone else being there but didn't lift her head to acknowledge his presence. He stopped a foot away from her, mouth opening and closing in search for words, only to realize that he could only say one thing.

"I'm sorry."

He had never apologized to anyone before, why should he, and the words felt foreign in his mouth. By the way she relaxed and wiped her face however, he could see that it had been the right words to say. She got up and walked over to him, head still slightly bowed and stopped when she was right beside him before lifting her left hand and gently smacking him in the chest. She then went away, back to the cave, but he could still hear the words that left her mouth.

"It's okay… And thank you."

It was on that evening that Adam Taurus respected a human for the first time in his life.

A/N: I do not own RWBY or its characters. I do, however, own my OC Serena and any other OCs that appear in this story.

There you have it. Hope it wasn't too unrealistic or anything, but I'm actually quite pleased with the way this chapter turned out to be. So, I hope you will tell me what you think and follow/fave if you haven't yet.

See you in the next chapter and thank you for reading up to this point!