Stopping and Starting

Blake reached out her arm hesitantly, freezing before her knuckles could make contact with the door. What if she's already asleep? She was sure Yang was exhausted, and at the very least, Blake owed her a solid night's rest. Though given how she seemed to sleep lately, that wouldn't be much of a boon. But no, Blake could hear movement on the other side of the door, the clinking of ice in a glass.

Steeling herself, the faunus rapped lightly on the wood. Immediately, the noises within ceased. "Yang?" she called out haltingly. She waited to see if her partner would respond, and when nothing came, she spoke again, "Yang? Can I come in?" More silence met her question. "Come on, Yang. I know you're in there; I can hear you."

There was a shuffling at that, and a low curse about 'damn cat ears.' "What do you want, Blake?"

The brunette winced at the tone of Yang's voice. It was harsh and short, like it had been in the bar that first night. "To talk. Can I please come in?"

There was a beat of silence before Yang replied, "I don't think there's anything to talk about. Go to bed."

"You and I both know that's bullshit, Yang."

"Go away, Blake."

"Not until we talk."

"Then go ahead and talk."

Blake narrowed her eyes despite Yang not being able to see her. "I'm not having this conversation with you through a door, Yang."

"So don't have it."

Blake closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cool wood. "Yang, please," she pleaded, voice soft. "Just…please."

There was no reply from the blonde, but after a few moments, Blake heard the tell-tale shick of a deadbolt sliding out of place. Yang didn't open the door for her, but unlocking it was enough for Blake. The faunus pressed the handle down and stepped into the room, swiftly closing the door behind her before Yang could rethink her decision. A quick glance around the room told her it was exactly like hers, right down to the minibar tucked beside the desk. Those hers had yet to be opened.

Her eyes alighted on a half-empty glass of brown liquid sitting on the nightstand at the same time the sharp, stinging scent of alcohol hit her nostrils. "I thought we agreed you wouldn't drink on this operation anymore," she started quietly.

"What can I say?" Yang said as she threw herself onto the bed and picked up the whiskey. "I'm disappointing like that."

"Yang…" she began as the blonde finished off the contents of the glass. "What's wrong?"

Lilac eyes glanced sideways at her, searching, before looking away again. "Nothing."

"Yang."

"Nothing's wrong, Blake."

"Yang," she said again, this time more forcefully, staring sternly at her partner's face.

"Nothing. Is. Wrong," Yang hissed, finally meeting Blake's gaze with red-ringed irises.

"Then why are you acting like this?"

"Like what?"

Blake motioned toward her. "Like this! Like you were when I came to tell you about Roman!"

Yang's grip on her glass tightened, her knuckles turning white with strain. "I don't know what you're talking about," she clipped.

The brunette couldn't keep her voice from rising. "God dammit Yang, you know exactly what I'm talking about!"

"No, I don't." Whereas Blake's volume went up, Yang's went down.

"For fuck's sake, yes you-"

The sound of shattering glass echoed through the room, cutting off Blake's words. "What do you want from me, Blake?" Yang asked, seemingly unaware of the glinting shards now puncturing her hand, of the blood dripping from her palm. Her voice was tired, not at all angry and full of rage, like Blake had been expecting. There was no red in her eyes, not the barest hint. They were the clearest lilac Blake had ever seen, and they shined with the tears Yang seemed unable to shed.

"Yang," Blake breathed, taken aback by the sudden change. This was not at all how she had wanted this to go. She had let herself be drawn in by Yang's standoffishness, and fired back when she should have remained calm and held her tongue. The faunus took a deep breath. Time to regain control. She took a step toward Yang.

"No." Blake froze. "Just…don't," Yang's voice cracked on the last syllable, and Blake's heart with it. Seeing Yang as broken as she was before had hurt, but this was so much worse. Knowing that Yang had been on the mend, knowing that she had been coming back, and now she had been shattered all over again. Worse, knowing that she had a hand in it, some way or another. She had hurt Yang, perhaps irreparably. "What do you want from me?" Yang asked again, this time a whisper.

Blake was silent as she pondered on that, before simply stating, "I want you to talk to me."

Yang glanced down at her hands lying in her lap, showing no change of emotion when her eyes landed on the bleeding one. "Why?"

"Because something is wrong and I want to know what it is."

"Why do you care?"

Blake's mind stopped for a moment while those words sunk in. "Why wouldn't I care?"

A small, hollow smile pulled at Yang's lips. "Because you're done with me." Blake couldn't move, couldn't think, the air was frozen in her lungs. "I've finally pushed you too far, and you've had it. You're sick of me." She shook her head. "I should never have come with you. All those people would still be alive if I hadn't."

"Yang, what are you talking about?"

The blonde raised her head, locking eyes with her partner. "You said it yourself…you made a mistake."

That was when it hit Blake. Exactly what was wrong, exactly what she had done. "No," she whispered. Those words echoed through her head, only this time, she heard it from Yang's perspective, after having just been told that it had been Roman that had caused the devastation before them. She had been the one who had enabled his escape. It was her fault. And now Blake was telling her that she had made a mistake when she had sought her out. She was a mistake. "No no no." Another scene played out in her mind, perspectives still flipped. Standing amidst the fire, smoke, and screams of pain, she watched as the one person who had stayed by her this entire time looked at her, shook her head, and walked away. "Yang, no." Tears pricked at Blake's eyes and she felt her voice stutter.

That wasn't it. That was never it. But she hadn't been thinking. She had been too distracted, too caught up in everything, to notice the effect her words and actions were having on the woman she had sworn to protect. She had left woman she loved vulnerable, alone, and thinking that she was hated. Weiss' verbal onslaught had probably only hammered the idea home. It didn't take much to see why Yang was in this state.

Blake moved to the bed and reached out. Her arms wrapped around Yang's neck and pulled her into a tight embrace. "No, Yang. God no. That's not-" her throat clenched, cutting off her words, so she just held the blonde all the harder, trying to communicate her feelings through the contact. Yang's own hands grasped desperately at Blake's back, and the faunus imagined she could hear Yang's screams for help. Every beat of the brawler's heart that thumped through her fingertips and up Blake's spine begged her not to leave, not to abandon her.

"Never," Blake said firmly. She pulled away from Yang, and her hands came up to cup her face. Misty, golden eyes looked into swirling lilac pools of desperation and pain. "I will never abandon you," she stated firmly, her voice found. "Never." Yang's fingers curled tighter as her lip trembled, but she nodded. It looked like she was about to cry, but again, no tears came. Blake felt something warm spreading down her back from where Yang's right hand rested. She reached back, gently grasped the blonde's wrist and brought it around for inspection. Blood flowed freely from multiple lacerations, and several large slivers of glass jutted from her skin. It was amazing Blake hadn't been pierced by the shards.

"C'mon," she said quietly. She made to stand, and Yang let out a noise close to whimper. Blake squeezed her good hand reassuringly. "I'm not leaving you, Yang. We're just going to go to my room so I can patch up your hand, okay?"

The blonde stared at her for a moment, as if unsure she was telling the truth, eyes searching. Eventually she nodded, and let Blake carefully pull her to her feet. Although she didn't let it show on her face, inside the faunus felt like screaming. Screaming in frustration at Weiss, screaming in sadness for Yang, screaming in anger at herself. She had sworn, to herself, to Ruby, that she would bring Yang back, that she would restore her. Yet she was the one who had put her where she was right now. Quiet, broken, and balanced on an edge so fine a misplaced breath could push her over. Having once walked the same road to redemption and recovery, Blake should've have known that it was never short, and it was never easy. She had let Yang down.

The pair silently slipped from Yang's room. The brawler let her injured appendage hang by her side, leaving a small, spattered trail of red in her wake; Weiss was going to have a conniption. Her other hand was held firmly by Blake, who guided her down the hall, to her own room. She swiped her card, and the door clicked. They moved into the dim interior, lit only by the lamp resting on the nightstand. Blake led her partner to the chair at the desk. She pressed a light kiss to Yang's forehead. "I'm going to go get a few things from the bathroom, okay? We'll get this cleaned up…and then we can talk."

Yang began trembling whenever she said 'talk,' but said nothing. She nodded slightly. Blake turned and headed to the bathroom. Fortunately, the SDC guest hotel was the kind that had disposable cups in their bathroom. She grabbed three, filling one up with cold water, and another up with warm. On a small, silver rack bolted to the wall, she found a stack of towels and washcloths. With two of the washcloths thrown over her arm and balancing the three cups, she headed back out into the room. Yang was slouched in the chair, arms limp in her lap and staring at nothing. Blake set the cups and towels down on the desk. She handed the cold water to Yang to drink, and moved to her bag, breathing a silent thanks that her teammate had had enough foresight to have their luggage picked up from the Shadowswift. She returned to Yang's side, placing the retrieved first aid kit on the wooden surface.

After that began the arduous process of using tweezers to carefully extract the slender shards embedded in Yang's hand. The larger ones weren't a problem. She removed them with no issue, dropping them into the empty cup with a soft clatter. It was the smaller ones that gave her problems, even with her night vision turning the half-light into daylight. Obscured as they were by the crimson coloring her partner's skin, Blake had a difficult time finding some of them. Yang didn't wince even once. Eventually, Blake felt like she had gotten them all, and set aside the tweezers in exchange for a washcloth.

She dipped it in the warm water and began meticulously cleaning the blood from Yang's wounds, which for the most part had stopped bleeding. Yang watched her noiselessly as Blake wiped away the last of the red liquid and turned to her first aid kit. She held up a small bottle of the healing salve and a roll of gauze. A sense of déjà vu set in as she spread the ointment and applied the bandages. She worked quickly, and was soon finishing wrapping the last of cloth about Yang's wrist, clipping it off from the roll and clasping it down.

Blake didn't let go of her hand though, looking up at Yang from her kneeling position on the floor. She rubbed soft circles over the injured area. "How come every time we have a talk," she started quietly, "it somehow involves me dressing your wounds?" She didn't smile, though Blake hadn't really expected her to, but her tone of voice seemed to ease some of the tension from the blonde. "Yang…" How should she even say this next part? "I'm sorry." Well that was a good start. And unexpected, judging by the furrowing of Yang's brow.

She opened her mouth to say something, but Blake placed a finger to her lips, another feeling of familiarity from years ago creeping through her thoughts. "I'm sorry for not noticing what I was doing to you, and for giving you the absolute wrong impression."

"Wrong impression?" Yang mumbled around her finger.

"That I was done with you. That I was leaving you and that it was a mistake to bring you along."

"But when you went with Weiss…"

"I know, but that's not what it seemed to be. It was aimed at me. I wanted to take you with me, god did I want to. But I wanted to protect you more." Yang's eyes widened. "We had no idea if any of the building were still structurally sound, or if they were going to collapse at a moment's notice like the other. We didn't know if there were any gas leaks or any more bombs waiting to go off. I didn't want to take you into potentially fatal situations when your Aura still wasn't functioning properly. I wouldn't have been able to protect you. That was me telling myself no, I couldn't risk it. That's why I made sure Weiss and I dealt with the most hazardous areas. I was in too much a haste to realize the implications of what I did, though. And I should've.

"I also should've realized when I said I made a mistake that you'd take it the wrong way." She sighed, and seemed to deflate as the day's events once more crashed into her. "When I said that, Yang, it had absolutely nothing to do with you. The mistake I made was entirely my own. I underestimated Roman. Badly. I should've known how ruthless and thorough he could be. The instant that tracker went out, I should have sent a message to Weiss and told her to raid that warehouse. Instead I naively believed he'd just bolt and leave us something behind, and because of it, he had time to set that bomb and get away. That was my mistake, and I have never once considered bringing you along as that." She squeezed her partner's hand and let her finger fall away from the blonde's mouth.

Yang was silent for a moment as she considered her words. "But it was my flying off the handle that let him escape in the first place. Britain was right. If I hadn't tried to kill him, if I had just kept my damn head, we would already have him, and all those people would be-" she choked off the end of her sentence. Her arms began trembling again and her eyes fell to her lap. "I killed them, Blake. Fuck, I killed them all."

"No." Blake placed a hand under Yang's chin and lifted her face. "Roman killed those people. Roman set that bomb. Roman pressed the button. Not you." Yang shook her head, but before she could protest, Blake continued. "Yes, you made a mistake. Yes, Roman escaped because of it. But the only thing your mistake did was allow him to run to Atlas. Everything that happened after that was all on him. You can't blame yourself for the actions of a madman, Yang." Golden eyes burned into lilac ones, as if daring her to argue.

"Why?" Yang asked, voice no more than a whisper. "Why do you put up with me? Why do you go so far for me? I've been awful to you. I left you, I abandoned you. You should hate me, like Weiss. I have no right to ask you to stay with me."

"Then don't," Blake said simply and she pulled herself to her feet. She leaned over Yang and pressed her lips gently into the blonde mane atop her partner's head. "But I'm going to anyway." She pulled Yang from the chair gently and led her to the bed. "Lay down," she commanded, as she removed her bloodied over shirt, revealing a short, black slip beneath.

Yang looked between Blake and the matress. "But…I have my own room…"

"If you honestly think I'm leaving you by yourself after all of that, I've been giving you too much credit." She sat on the edge of the bed and tugged Yang down. The blonde laid on her back, and Blake settled herself over her right half, head resting on Yang's shoulder. The faunus' arm latched around Yang's midsection, while the brawler's injured hand instinctively curled around Blake's shoulders. Their legs gently entwined as Blake switched off the bedside lamp.

They laid there in the dark in silence for some time, each drawing on the presence of the other. Blake closed her eyes and focused on the woman underneath of her. The rise and fall of her chest, the heartbeat thumping through her chest, the breath that tickled her second set of ears with every exhale.

"Do you really think she hates me?" Yang suddenly voiced.

Blake glanced up at her and found her eyes fixed on the ceiling. "No," she replied, nuzzling into Yang's shoulder. The blonde held her a bit closer. "Weiss doesn't hate you, Yang. She's always dealt with things in a very…abrasive manner, to put it mildly. You know that. I think she's very hurt, and she's very angry with you, and this is just how she vents it." Yang finally looked down at her as she continued. "I don't think Weiss knows how to feel or what to do with your return, to be honest. She's normally very good at handling unexpected situations, but I guess today was a curveball even by her standards."

"…she's changed."

"It's been four years, Yang. Of course she's changed."

"It's more than I was expecting."

"Sun?" There was a noise of affirmation. "I can see how that'd be confusing." Blake brought her arm up and began idly tracing patterns on Yang's shoulder. "After the Siege, there was a lot of debate over what would happen to Beacon. The school closed down for about three months while Ozpin and the rest figured out exactly what to do. Weiss and I never left. I had nowhere to go, and Weiss refused to go home to Atlas, because there was no way I would've been allowed to go with her. Being apart back then wasn't really an option." Blake looked up again to find Yang listening intently, so she continued.

"When Beacon reopened, a lot of students didn't come back. Either their parents pulled them out or they didn't feel like they could take the Hunter's life anymore. Almost every team lost at least one person, either to the fighting or to leaving. JNPR was actually one of only three teams that managed to keep all their members through everything. Ozpin offered those of us who remained a choice, we could either continue with our old team configuration, or combine with other teams to fill in the gaps and form a new four-man cell. By that point, Sun was pretty much already on a team with us. Even after everyone else had returned home after the Siege, he stuck around. He did what he could to help us through it, especially Weiss."

"What about Neptune and the rest?" Yang questioned.

"His school didn't do teams, remember? They run the whole 'solo hunter' thing. The reason the four of them came together was for the Vytal Festival's team events. It was just a temporary thing. He transferred to Beacon not long after the attack. One of the few who did. Anyway, since we had the three of us, and we understood by then that you wouldn't be returning," Yang flinched slightly, "we decided to form a new team, and picked up Velvet."

"Velvet?" Yang felt rather than saw her partner nod. "I remember she was on vacation or something when Cinder attacked. I don't remember what happened to the rest of her team."

"They died. All three of them died when the front of the school got hit with the higher level Grimm."

"Oh…"

"We adopted her into our team. Naming conventions sort of went out the window, so we decided to keep using RWBY." Blake shifted, nestling into Yang's side. "As for how they ended up together…once Weiss started taking over SDC duties, she started making enemies. She was a Schnee, and she was good at it. Better than a lot of those who had been doing it for years. On top of that, she started using her influence to push through pro-faunus legislation." Yang actually jolted in surprise, and Blake chuckled. "Shocking, right? I guess being on a team of nothing but faunus helped change her views. Thanks to her efforts, several amendments and laws have been passed that have somewhat equalized the field when it comes to humans and faunus. That's why I can walk around without my bow with no fear now.

"A lot of people didn't take kindly to what she was doing, though, and they tried to put a stop to it. Permanently. Weiss took care of most of attempts with no problem, but there was one that caught her entirely off guard, and would have succeeded had Sun not interfered. She decided to make him her bodyguard after that, and from there, things just kind of progressed. I'm not really sure when it happened. One day, they were just sort of together. You wouldn't think it, but they make a surprisingly good couple."

Yang digested all of this information in silence. "I missed so much."

"Yes, you did." Blake's arm tightened around her abdomen. "But the important thing is you're here now. You don't have to miss any more." The faunus yawned widely. "C'mon, let's get to sleep. Weiss will throw a hissy-fit if we're not on time tomorrow." She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against her partner, reveling in the warmth that flowed from her. "Goodnight, Yang."

There was no response, but her gauzed fingers slid over the fabric of Blake's slip gently, and that was enough for her.

It didn't take long before the brunette was out, breathing slow and rhythmic.

Yang remained awake for a while longer as Blake's words floated through her thoughts.

"You don't have to miss any more."

No, she thought as sleep claimed her. No I don't.

A/N: So, surprise! Kinda! I bet all of you were expecting everything to go incredibly awfully in every possible way this chapter. Kinda and kinda not. I like having ups and downs.

Anyway, what did we all think? Bit of exposition and some nice convos. Hope you all enjoyed

Man did I enjoy writing the Bumblebuzzes this chapter. Like, shit, I was so close to just making them kiss and having some confessions thrown in there. But nah, you gotta earn that, hahaha

Side note: OVER 20,000 VIEWS?! WHAT IS- I DON'T - UGH YOU ARE ALL AMAZING I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! Seriously, though, you guys rock. Keep on being you're fantastically bitchin' selves