A/N: Sorry for the missed day, didn't have internet for a while there.
Ch. 3
The day Yang felt the world crumble around her started much like any other day.
She woke up, took a shower, attached her metallic arm, and got dressed. Yang walked into the kitchen of her apartment and was surprised to find that Ruby wasn't there. It was already 9:15, and Ruby was always up and eating a bowl of Pumpkin Pete's cereal by 9:10. Yang chuckled to herself, and thought that Ruby must have stayed out late again at Blake's bar, looking for the redhead she had seen six months ago.
The blonde walked down the hall to Ruby's room to wake her little sister up; after all, they had to open the auto shop in 15 minutes. Yang opened the door and felt the smile fall off her face. She sprinted into the room and dropped to her knees next to Ruby's motionless body. The girl was lying next to her bed, her head in a pool of blood. It looked as if Ruby had rolled off her bed in the middle of the night and hit her head on the side table. Yang ripped the sheet off of Ruby's bed, wrapped the small girl's head in it and scooped her into her arms. Yang ran downstairs, grabbed her keys off the hook and tore off to the nearest hospital, the whole time fighting back tears.
How could she let this happen? Ruby was her responsibility, and Yang had let her down. What if she had decided to just let Ruby sleep? Yang shuddered at the thought. What if Ruby was dead? She didn't even check her vitals! Yang slammed on her breaks and reached out to put two fingers on Ruby's wrist. After 30 painful and terrifying seconds, Yang felt a heartbeat. It was faint and slow, but it was there.
With a renewed sense of urgency, Yang slammed on the gas and made the 20 minute drive to the hospital happen in 7. She rushed into the emergency entrance shouting for help, within seconds Ruby was taken from her, put on a stretcher and rushed away. Yang stood there motionless watching the doors her sister had just disappeared through. It took a few seconds to register that the woman at the desk was speaking to her.
"Miss?"
Yang started and looked to her left at the woman. She took a minute to take in the bunny ears and kind brown eyes before replying. "I'm...I'm sorry, did you say something?"
The woman nodded and offered her the seat in front of the desk. "I just have some questions I need to ask you regarding the girl you just brought in. Are you her guardian or is she of age?"
"I take care of her. I mean, she can take care of herself, I just like to do it for her, but she hates that. She's my sister, well my half-sister...Oh jeez, I didn't even call dad or Qrow...you asked a question though, shit, I- Yes, she's of age, she's 25," Yang finished and sat down in the chair, putting her face into trembling hands. "I'm sorry, I'm just a little shook up."
The rabbit faunus smiled kindly and reached out to put her hand on Yang's shoulder. "It's alright, I understand. Could you tell me what happened?"
As Yang explained how she had found Ruby that morning, the woman, Velvet, her name tag revealed, began typing on her keyboard, nodding occasionally and asking her questions every now and then. "Well, it sounds like you did everything right Ms. Xiao Long."
Yang smiled weakly "Whoa, whoa, Long is my father's name." Velvet laughed, and Yang smiled wider as she remembered her first conversation with Weiss. Weiss. She wanted to call Weiss right now, she wanted, no, needed a hug from her and the only person in the universe she wanted at her side right now besides Ruby was the beautiful white-haired girl she had gotten to know so well these past six months.
"Excuse me, I have to go make some phone calls," Yang stated as she got up from her chair.
"Of course, we'll let you know if Ruby's condition changes," Velvet said with a smile and a small nod.
Yang walked over to the other side of the waiting room and immediately found Weiss's name in her recent calls list. The pair talked nearly every night, and as soon as Yang pushed the call button, she felt just a bit calmer.
"Yang? Is everything alright?" Weiss picked up on the second ring and already sounded worried. Yang smiled a bit at the girl's concern.
"Um, no, not really. Ruby hit her head last night, I found her this morning, she lost a lot of blood, we're at Vale Hospit-"
"Don't move, I'm on my way." Click. Yang looked at her scroll in surprise. Obviously she had expected Weiss to be concerned, but to drop everything and rearrange her presumably scheduled day to come and be with her? That had to mean something right?
"Come on, focus Yang, Ruby needs you right now." Yang shook her head to clear her mind of those thoughts for now. She sighed and sat down in one of the seats, and scrolled through her contact list to find her father's number.
oO0Oo
After a long conversation full of "But she's okay, right!?" and "I wish I could be there.", Yang hung up the scroll.
Just then, the doors flung open and Weiss rushed in, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, her hair free of it's usual side ponytail, with not a stitch of makeup on. It was the most casual Yang had ever seen her, and honestly, she loved it. Weiss was looking frantically around, she turned her head and spotted Yang, relaxed a little, a ran over.
The white-haired girl threw her arms around Yang and pulled her in for a tight hug. "Are you alright? How's Ruby? Has anything changed? You've told your father haven't you? Yang you've got blood all over your shirt, did you bring a change of clothes?" Weiss spit out rapid fire questions, looking very flustered.
"Sort of, fine I think, I don't know, yes, no." Yang chuckled, answering all Weiss's questions ticking them off her fingers. "Calm down princess, there isn't really much we can do right now." Yang paused and realized that she was looking down a lot more than she usually had to. She glacned at Weiss's feet and saw a pair of white converse, looking as if they had never been worn. "You're a lot shorter than I thought you were."
Weiss looked surprised for a half a moment before rolling her eyes and laughing, the tension in her shoulders finally going away. She swatted Yang on the arm. "Leave it to you to tease me at a time like this."
Yang smiled and shrugged her shoulders, just as the hospital doors opened again. A doctor with a shock of grey hair and small circular glasses holding a clipboard strode through them. "Is there a Yang Xiao Long here?" he asked, looking around the room.
Yang practically knocked the poor man over in her haste to get to him. "That's me, how's Ruby, is she going to be alright?"
The man looked at her over his glasses and sighed. "We have her in a stable condition now, but we've determined that she has a contusion, just" he stopped and tapped Yang on the left side of her head. "There. She was bleeding for quite some time when you brought her to us, it's rather large. We need to remove it soon or she won't make it."
"Well then what are we waiting for, do it, do it now!" Yang was yelling by the end of her sentence, pushing the doctor back the way he came, but stopped when he placed his hands on her shoulders.
"You see Ms. Xiao Long, the surgery isn't covered by your insurance, and it's" the doctor shifted his weight from foot to foot, he looked severely uncomfortable with the situation. "Well, it's quite expensive. We will, of course, save your sister's life, but just know that you will be paying medical bills for quite some time, even after we complete the procedure there's medication and mandatory doctor visits and-"
"Of course I want you to save her. How can you even ask that?" Yang's eyes were flashing red again, and even the doctor seemed to realize he misspoke.
"I only want you to be prepared. Overall, it will cost around $700,000. I'll get back to the surgeons and tell them we're ready to go through with the operation." With that, the doctor made a hasty retreat through the doors, looking thoroughly relieved the conversation was over.
Weiss looked back up at Yang to find that her eyes had gone back to lilac, but her face was ashen and she looked utterly defeated. "We'll have to sell the shop. I'll get another job or something, maybe two, hell, I'll get three jobs. I don't even know if that'll be enough though. Where am I going to get that money…" The blonde collapsed into a chair and put her face in her hands again.
Weiss looked utterly bewildered and then she did something that Yang never would have expected in a million years. She laughed. Weiss Schnee threw her head back and laughed. In her face. In the hospital. Where her sister could have died. All the blonde could do was stare up in confusion and hurt at the girl she felt so strongly for.
The heiress finally seemed to notice this and stopped her laughing, wiping at one eye. "I'm sorry it's just that, you seem to forget whose company you're in. Do you really think I'd let you run yourself into the ground? Sell your most prized possession? Don't be absurd."
Yang's brow only furrowed more. "What are you talking abo-"
"I'll be paying for it. The surgery, her rehab, a personal nurse if you need it. Anything. Everything." Weiss stated simply, crossing arms across her chest.
"Weiss, I can't ask you to do that, you hardly know Ruby. You hardly know me." Yang said, her voice still hollow.
"You're not asking, I'm telling you I'm paying for it. I don't want to sound like a snob, but really, $700,000 isn't all that much for me. Pocket change, honestly. She's the most important person in your life Yang. And you're the most important person in mine…" Weiss trailed off, not really meaning to admit that last part to anyone, much less the blonde herself.
Yang stared at her for a second, the same blazing look in her eyes as the first time they had met. Weiss fidgeted under that gaze, and looked down at her feet. So it surprised her when she felt the warmest embrace she had ever received, and it shocked her when she felt her shoulder getting wet with Yang's tears.
"T-thank you. I can't ever repay you for this." Yang sobbed into her shoulder, the events of the day finally wearing her down.
"You don't need to, you big brute." Weiss smiled as Yang let out a shaky laugh. "Come on, let's go sit down, I have a feeling you're not going to leave until you see Ruby and I intend to stay here with you."
And for the next three days, Yang stayed at the hospital waiting for Ruby's release. And during those three days, Weiss stayed firmly by her side.
Because it was the only place either of them wanted to be.