Chapter 46: An Argument Within The Family

See that title? You know the one that's above my notes here? Yeah, it's a blatant metaphor. I find that that type of trope is a huge cliché. However, it might work with a romance story. After all, all tropes related to them have been pretty much done to death. Yet again, this story has romance in it, so I guess that makes me a hypocrite. Oh well, I'm okay with that. Where was I? Right, I don't own anything in this story. Now, to the chapter!

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With the message now in hand, an overjoyed Weiss and sugar-fueled Ruby merrily made their way to their dorm room to tell Yang and Blake the good news. They just had to hear it all! Now, there was a feeling that they could do anything!

"We did it!" Ruby cheered as she skipped down the walkway.

Weiss couldn't help but agree. "I know, right?!". But then, a sudden thought burst her bubble of excitement a little. "Wait, she didn't go into detail, did she?".

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked, her voice still high with sugar.

"I mean that she didn't say how well it went. All she said was that it was a success. How was it successful?" wondered Weiss out loud. She was asking herself that question more than anything. Leave it to her to bring down her own high.

Ruby optimistically suggested, "Well, maybe it went so well, Ms. Han could only describe it as that?".

"Maybe…" Weiss mulled over to herself. "Wait, she said she would talk to me later. Maybe she's saving the details for later…".

"See, there's no reason to worry!" Ruby chirped. "Maybe she's just thinking of a good way to explain everything to you!".

Weiss allowed herself to relax a little. Maybe Ruby was right. For all intents and purposes, Ms. Han had pretty much done her job, if she had bothered to send her a message. She should relax a little. She certainly needed it, after all the mental strain she had putting herself under for the past two days.

"I suppose you have a point… I guess I should ease up a little," Weiss admitted. Ruby shone knowing grin at her.

"That's why I brought you out here," Ruby slyly said as she nudged her elbow against Weiss' arm.

Weiss inwardly smiled at Ruby's statement. Of course she would be so confident in her plan. Sure, that news wasn't actually a part of it, but her dorkiness made sure that she would take partial credit for it. She tried very hard to look cool in front of Weiss. It was adorable, in an odd way.

An almost hesitant hand was placed on Ruby's head. Weiss wasn't sure if Ruby would like it, but she decided to lightly tousle her reddish hair. "I know, and you did a fabulous job," she complimented. Ruby's smile grew even bigger at Weiss' kind words.

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A few minutes later, Team White Rose found themselves at the door of their dorm room. However, they were rather hesitant to enter. There had been countless times when they had walked in on Blake and Yang doing very graphic things to each other. Ruby and Weiss had come to a unanimous agreement that the strangest thing they had walked in on was the pair of them, with the cat Faunus dressed as a half-naked ninja mime, and the blond brawler dressed as a construction worker. That mental image was banished to the same place as the memories of Blake's fan fiction: to a part of the mind meant to be sealed away, forgotten.

Taking the smart option, Ruby decided to knock on the door this time around.

"You can come in," Yang's muffled voice responded form the other side of the door.

With extreme caution, Ruby and Weiss entered the room. Fortunately, nothing that could permanently scar sanity was occurring at the moment. In fact, things looked positively normal. Blake was trying something on her laptop, and Yang was watching the small television on the desk, a can of Abomination energy drink in hand.

"Look at you two…" Yang teasingly leered. "Did you go on a hot date? You know, go out on the two, catch a flick, stick a fing—".

"Please, Yang, don't dampen my good mood," chided Weiss.

"Good mood? What brought this out of you?" dryly asked Blake, not looking up from her laptop.

Weiss couldn't help but flash a small grin at what she was about to unveil. "I've gotten word back from Ms. Han, and my plan for my father has been set in motion! Isn't that fantastic?" she posed to the others. Of course, neither of them replied right away. An awkward silence hung over the air.

Eventually, Blake simply stated, "Good for you,".

This took Weiss aback slightly. "That's it? Not 'Wow, now your chance to be free is here,' or 'I'm so happy that things are looking up for you finally,'?" she huffed in deep annoyance.

Yang ran a hand repeatedly through her thick locks. "It's not that we don't think that. But, I mean… can't we just let this whole thing settle a bit?" she offered.

"I can't! This is the chance for me and Ruby to finally be free of my father's shadow!" Weiss protested.

Ruby tugged at Weiss' arm as soon as she heard her girlfriend's voice rise. Weiss cast an almost apologetic look to Ruby, and then let out a large huff.

"Let me just say that I, no, WE," Weiss gestured to herself and Ruby, "need this to happen,".

Blake looked up from her laptop to share a concerned glance with Yang. She followed up her look with, "I'm going to have to agree with Yang on this one. After all, what happened not that long ago is still painful. I think we just need some time to regroup and rethink what we've done so far,". Yang couldn't help but be reminded of the grave sin she nearly committed. Her eyes dimmed, and her head lowered.

"We can just put that stuff behind us now, make amends, and move on. Even for a little bit…" she muttered to Weiss.

"How can you say that?!" Weiss loudly cried, her anxiety flaring. How could her friends just downplay what had happened to them? Did they just not think that they deserved some vengeance for themselves?

Ruby put a hand on Weiss' shoulder. "Weiss, we were doing good earlier. Maybe you can slow down a little?" she asked while making a 'shrinking' motion with her fingers.

Weiss took several deep breaths to try and calm herself. Ruby was right, they had a good time earlier, but now she was letting her strong negative emotions get the best of her again. Why was this always a problem with her? Was it because she felt she was entitled to what she felt she deserved? Or, was it because she honestly believed that she was providing justice to Team RWBY? Either choice was a viable answer. It wasn't that much of a clear-cut answer to come to. Weiss herself didn't know the answer to that one.

Yang put up her hands in a defensive gesture. "I just don't want to re-live all that crap, you know? Can you really blame me or Blake for that?" she commented.

That was logic that Weiss couldn't ignore. She knew all too well that she tried to move past all of her life's problems by moving to Beacon Academy, and away from her father. But, now that her past had reared its ugly head back to her, Weiss felt she had no choice to push against the raging tide of an unwanted fate.

"But… how can you just live with that on your shoulders? I say that we should get rid of the thing that caused the problem in the first place!" Weiss argued.

"Revenge never solved anything. All it does is create a cycle of horrible, regrettable actions," Blake sagely advised. She knew that better than the others. Her service in the White Fang had educated her on that fact of life all too well. What is justice to one person, is an attack of retribution to another.

"HE HURT RUBY!" Weiss furiously roared at Blake. Blake and Yang looked shocked at her outburst, but Ruby looked visibly disappointed instead. She could tell that all those positive emotions from earlier had all but ebbed away. And she had been doing well with them earlier, too.

"That… that… MONSTER hurt Ruby more than anything else! He hurt me too, damn it! He needs to be shown that he can't waltz into people's lives and just wreck everything! He needs to be punished for his sins!" Weiss continued. By now, she was huffing in breaths of air rapidly, trying to control her blazing anger. All she was seeing was red, but not the type she associated with Ruby. No, it wasn't a red like that of roses, Ruby's soft cloak, or the warmth of a flame. This was a red born of a desire for blood, a need for retribution.

"Weiss, please! Calm down! I know he did something bad to us, but we can think normally about this!" Ruby pleaded. It was scaring her how much Weiss' personality had shifted from earlier. This was the exact thing she was trying to avoid happening, but it seemed to be doomed to happen regardless.

Unfettered by the others pleas, Weiss continued her rant. "Everything he touches turns to ashes! He's only good at ruining other people's lives! I HATE him!".

Ruby had reached her breaking point. If Weiss continued with the way she was acting, then she might do something that everyone would regret later. So, even though it pained her, Ruby had to force sense into her girlfriend.

"That's ENOUGH, Weiss!" Ruby yelled at her as she grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. The sheer shock of Ruby raising her voice at her made her stop her ranting and raving.

"Your inner demons are torturing you, I understand that," Ruby continued, "but you're not the only one with those types of problems! I lost my mom! I would give ANYTHING to have her back! But I don't let it control me! Don't let your anger at the world control what you feel! You're… you're not acting like the Weiss I love!".

The room grew quite as Ruby's words sunk in. Blake and Yang shared nervous looks at each other, before the both of them silently got out of their chairs. Without a single word being uttered, Yang and Blake left the dorm room. They had no place in a couple's argument. Ruby and Weiss paid little attention to their teammates leaving. The two of them were more focused on the outburst than anything.

The door clicked closed, as Ruby kept on staring at Weiss' shocked look. Eventually, Ruby mustered up the courage to say: "I… I don't like it when you keep on going back to being angry like that… And you did so good earlier, too…" Ruby whispered lowly.

"I-I'm sorry, Ruby. It always gets me and I don't know how to handle it all… I can't hold it all back," admitted Weiss.

"But every time something like this comes up, you always go with it, and make it worse," Ruby evenly said back.

That stung Weiss a lot. Looking at Ruby, Weiss saw an unusual combination of emotions in her eyes. It was sadness for saying such mean things, but also relief at telling Weiss the things she needed to hear, the things she always ignored about herself. Weiss wasn't sure which look hurt more.

"I didn't m-mean it at a-all…" Weiss stammered in apology. However, it didn't look like Ruby was going to accept it this time around.

Instead, Ruby replied with, "I know, but… you always say that, and the next time something comes up, you just repeat those mistakes. Remember that bet? You allowed your addiction to get to you. It hurt me to have you toss away everything so pointlessly,". Her eyes began to well up at that memory. That was the lowest she had ever seen Weiss, but now Ruby was afraid that she would allow herself to sink lower.

Weiss simply blinked at what Ruby had to say. She knew what she was saying was true, but it was such a bitter pill to swallow, that she couldn't think of a way to respond.

Ruby continued to get everything off of her chest. "I wanted to help you this time around, so that you wouldn't do that again, but no matter what, it always keeps coming back… It's like there's nothing I can do can stay with you…" she admitted, with a hint of an edge in her voice.

"That's wrong! You're helping me by being my girlfriend! That's all I need!" Weiss finally sputtered out.

But, instead of the intended effect of comforting Ruby, the cloaked girl's face dropped, and her voice turned into a hoarse whisper. "I keep on trying, but it always just goes away… I don't know if I can keep it up…" she admitted.

Weiss froze in place. She was having a hard time wrapping her mind around what Ruby was saying. Or rather, it was something she didn't want to believe was possible. I couldn't be real, it just couldn't be!

Her scared voice croaked out on question. "A-are you th-thinking ab-bout breaking up with m-me?".

Ruby's eyes shifted around the room nervously, as if she was looking for the right words to tell Weiss.

She opened her mouth and got ready to tell Weiss what she thought.

xxx

This… probably isn't going to end up well. But, who can really say that for certain? After all, every couple goes through a rough patch, sometimes ones with distant endings. What's going to happen here remains to be seen. So, feel free to tel me what you think about this cliffhanger with a message or review. This is The Draigg, signing off for the time being.