"I love you… Dearest…"
Blake could only stare at her scroll as the torturous conversation played on repeat. She'd first received it three hours ago. When she saw that it was from Mina's scroll, she'd hit 'record' on instinct, but the message had started with Roman Torchwick's face saying 'I'm not supposed to do this but…' and then her grip had tightened around her scroll. Until she heard Mina's voice…
"Hello Dearest…" Mina was visibly bruised with her hair unkempt and hanging over her eyes. "And… do forgive Mister Torchwick; it's thanks to him that I can send you this message-"
"No need to thank me Blue Eyes; I'm the jailor – you've got the right to hate my guts."
"I prefer not to waste my time, Mister Torchwick." Mina had shaken her head at Roman, off screen, with a labored smile. "But Dearest… in all seriousness…"
"Mina! They haven't done anything to you have-?"
"Nothing that matters, if it meant I could hear your voice one more time…"
"Don't talk like-"
"Dearest," Mina spoke patiently, with a sad smile, "we both know the 'punishment' for traitors…"
"But you're still-"
"And why, Dearest, do you suppose that is?"
Blake couldn't answer. She knew why, but she couldn't say it.
"I just… Blake, I… I simply wanted to thank you once more – explicitly – for giving my life to me all that time ago… Mr. Torchwick says that we don't have long, so… I love you… Dearest…"
Each time she listened to it, her own part of the exchange seemed increasingly futile and so much less important. After the seventh or eighth time, she was ignoring not only her own voice, but Torchwick's as well – and ceased to care what his angle was in setting up this message, besides. Now, hours later, she was only hearing Mina's voice, and eventually only 'we both know the punishment for traitors' and 'I love you… Dearest…' Nothing else mattered. Mina was gone…
Yet amidst the silence in the room stifled by all of Blake's 'what if's and 'if only's, a single note of bitterness managed to penetrate her wallowing. She wasn't the only one who claimed to love Mina, yet when it had mattered – really mattered – she was the only one that wasn't to be found.
Why wasn't she there?
"Blake! Where are you going!?" Ruby asked, startled out of her silence by Blake's sudden rising to her feet.
"Whoa, Blake, I know you're mad, but-"
Neither sister's remonstration had any effect on Blake, though, as the Faunus stormed out of the room. She should have been there!
Weiss sat in a bedside chair in the infirmary ward, listening to the steady, faint tones of the machines. Dr. Edrych-Gwydr had been by a few times, but, save for that, Weiss had been alone here for the last day or so. Alone, that was, save for the occupant of the hospital bed. Nadia's condition was critical, but for the last twenty-four hours she'd been successfully stabilized. Whether or not she'd wake up was another matter; Nadia had lost a lot of blood - according to the emergency medical staff, too much. A transfusion might have been possible if she had any sort of medical records to speak of, but the sort of doctors she'd dealt with in the White Fang didn't keep them, and without certain knowledge of her blood type, it was too risky.
Her first taste of freedom and this is what happens to her… Weiss silently lamented, God… and I pushed her into this…
She felt cold. Not as cold as Nadia had, though, as she had lain their on the ground, her life bleeding away. Weiss had tried to slow it down, stem the bleeding however she could – superficial burns on Nadia's side where Weiss had attempted to cauterize the wound bore witness to that – but it wasn't enough to spare her this. The Heiress told herself time and again that it would have been worse if she hadn't been there, that Nadia would have bled out there on the floor, all alone were it not for Weiss's own intercession, but it did little and less to quell the cold unease in the pit of her stomach.
I could have been faster…
"Hey Nadia…" Weiss began, "I really went and messed this up didn't I?" She sighed. "I wasn't there for Mina… Although, looking at how me being there for you turned out, I'm not sure it would have made much difference…"
What would you even have done?
"You tried to apologize to me once; remember that? It wasn't that long ago – through the door… I don't think you knew I was there… really it sounded like more of a rehearsal – and mostly for Mina anyway - but that bit at the end… I wish you hadn't said it… Because it was after that that I decided… you deserved better… than this…" Weiss swallowed, taking a long moment to catch her breath and compose herself. "But you just had to go and prove you're better than either of us thought you were, didn't you?" For a long time, Nadia's heart monitor was the only thing to break the silence, steady, but soft. "Another thing about us Schnees… we don't like being proved wrong… Especially not like this…"
No response. Not that Weiss had been expecting one.
"Can I ask you something Nadia?" Silence. "Knowing what you do now… if you had the chance, would you change anything? Since we met, I mean… I suppose that isn't a lot to work with but…" Another sigh. "No… no I suppose you wouldn't… not the way you talked before… well… this… I just… I wish I could be so confident in saying the same…"
A thousand little things she could have done or not done, times she could have spoken up or kept silent, all in aid of achieving some other outcome than the present one before her. Something as simple as not having visited Nadia at lunch that one time, or even just refraining from pulling those strings with Ironwood… It was ironic really; to think that a timely cold shoulder could have saved Nadia's life…
But she isn't dead y- No. She just isn't-
The carelessly hasty opening of the door to the room snapped Weiss out of her regrets. Her attention snapped to the doorway, impulsively thinking to banish whomever it was from the room, but then she froze for a moment, before letting out a quietly defeated greeting. "Hello Blake…"
"How dare you?"
Weiss suppressed an angry retort, briefly glancing back over her shoulder before looking back to Blake, whose face was creased with anger, "What else was I supposed to do Blake-?"
"You should have-!"
"Shh…" Weiss hushed her without reproach, glancing once more over at Nadia, before ushering Blake out of the room, "please… outside…"
The anger in Blake's eyes did not abate, but she complied for as long as it took to step out of the room and into the hall. Once there though, Blake wouldn't be denied, and Weiss didn't mean to try.
"I can't believe you…" Blake hissed, "you weren't even there when I – Mina – needed you, but you're here for her?"
"Blake, I-"
"No! Why weren't you there in the Arena!?"
Weiss took a deep breath and tried to answer calmly, "I was at the southern gate-"
"Why weren't you with us?" Blake demanded, visibly trying to fight back tears in her anger, "you should have been there!"
"Blake, I didn't know…" It would have been pointless to specify that she couldn't have known. "I'm sorry-"
"Don't you dare tell me you're 'sorry!" Blake seethed, "damned if Stahlkreuz needed you like we did! What happened to being a team?"
"I'm not going to justify my absence, Blake-"
"I'd like to see you try!"
Weiss pursed her lips and fell silent.
"That's what I thought…" Blake muttered, "I could understand if you just thought you'd be more useful at the gates and somehow managed to miss what was happening inside the stadium, but..." She shot a hostile glare at the door behind Weiss. "Why the hell are you here with her?"
"You could say that I had a responsibility…"
"More important than your teammates? You said Mina was like a sister-"
"She is." Weiss interrupted, unwilling to forbear what Blake meant to imply, "and had things gone to hell sooner, I'd have been in the arena with you! And Nadia would be…"
Blake swallowed. "But now Mina is…" Blake had been holding Weiss by the shoulder, but now she all but collapsed to cry on it instead. "I… I couldn't stop it…"
"Blake-"
"Roman Torchwick of all people let me talk to her… one more time… on her scroll…" Blake continued, unable to stop herself from sobbing or keep the bitterness from her voice. She wanted it to hurt Weiss as much as it hurt her… "They're going to kill her Weiss."
"Blake…" Weiss sighed. "I'm sorry…"
"-Wait Blake!" Ruby's concerned cry announced the arrival of her and her sister.
"Don't do anything-!" Yang now.
"No…" Blake shook her head and stepped away, "I'm not going to let it happen…"
"Blake-"
"Please…" Blake interrupted the sister's confused questions, "we have to save her."
"Blake…" Weiss looked away.
Yang of all people tried to be the voice of reason, "Blake, We don't know where to-"
"We know that they are based southeast of Vale," Blake insisted over Yang's practical objection, "at least for the moment – and those bombs they used to blow open the streets – they delivered them on train cars along the discontinued subway line from Mountain Glenn! We know where to find them!"
"Blake, listen to yourself-" Weiss started, only to have Blake round on her in a rage.
"Listen to myself? I'm going to save her-!"
"Blake…" Weiss said heavily, "you, Yang, and Mina couldn't best two of their leaders, and you want to attack a base?"
"If we all go-"
"Then we can all die together!" Weiss argued, "You're not being rational Blake – we can't just rush in-"
"We can't do nothing!"
"That's not what I was suggesting-"
"We don't have time to waste!" Blake cried, "there's no telling when they'll… when they…"
"Oh my God…" Ruby gasped, realizing what Blake meant, "But Weiss! We have to help!"
"No, Ruby!" Weiss implored, though she was quite certain she was alone among the four of them, "we can't rush into this or all we'll accomplish is letting her listen to us dying first!"
"We can't wait and just hope they're kind enough to put it off!" Blake retorted heatedly, "Weiss, I thought you'd-"
"I don't feel guilty enough to rush into suicide Blake!" Weiss declared, "Blake, if the four of us could do it, I'd be right behind you, but we can't-!"
"With all four of us we could take Adam and-!"
"And what about the rest, Blake? What about Mercury Black? Or Emerald Sustrai? They're in on this too Blake! Do you really think we can take all of them by ourselves!?"
"We'll have to-"
"Blake…" Weiss gave her best effort to calm herself down, "take a breath… there will be an organized counter-attack when Ironwood can spare the forces from the mop-up oper-"
"Mina might not have that long!" Blake shouted, "we've waited too long already!"
"Blake. We can't-"
"But Weiss-" Ruby tried to speak up.
"Ruby, it can't be done; we just have to wait for-"
"Blake… maybe we should wait for backup…" Yang hesitated, no longer certain of her position.
"No." Blake said through clenched teeth, blazing golden eyes fixed upon Weiss's sad, but unblinking blue. "We're going. Come or don't. That'll be all that matters."
Weiss made to look away, but then shook her head, staring Blake straight in the eyes. "Blake, all this will accomplish is making her listen to you die." She shook her head in refusal once more, this time with a sense of finality, "I won't help you put her through that."
Blake cast a bitter glance at the closed door behind Weiss. "Then I guess we know who's more important to you…"
Weiss clenched her teeth. "This is not about Nadia Undine, Blake."
"You've been by her side since-"
"I pulled a few strings to get her training to be a huntress, and look where it got her!" Weiss shouted, unable to restrain herself, "and until some forces can be mustered for a counter-attack, I can think of nowhere that I should be more than right here! It's the least I can do!"
"You did what?" Yang demanded, aghast, "Weiss! She tried to kill us!"
But Weiss was still looking at Blake. "You of all people should appreciate that she deserved a second chance…"
Blake was silent.
"That was why I wasn't there Blake; because while everything was going well I wanted to make sure she was okay – it wasn't exactly a cushy lifestyle I steered her into – and as a result of that I wound up defending the south gate rather than fighting in the stands. I'm sorry about what happened to Mina, but we need more time-"
"No…" Blake looked away, ashamed to realize that she'd have rather Weiss left Undine to die, but unable to feel otherwise. "I'm going to save Mina – with or without you – and I'm going now. I'll do it alone if I have to…"
"Blake…" Weiss sighed.
"I love you… Dearest…" Blake played the words on her scroll, handed the device to Weiss, and turned away. "I can't do nothing Weiss…"
Weiss's hand closed tightly around the scroll, but she didn't budge. "Blake… What do you think it will do to Mina if you get captured or worse?"
Blake hesitated, but shook her head. "I love her Weiss; I can't leave her to die…"
Weiss sat in that bedside chair once more a time later. Nadia's pulse was the same as before, but each beat on the monitor seemed to carry so much more weight as Weiss tried to drown out any other thoughts. Rationally, she knew she'd made the right decision. Going with just the four of them would be certain suicide. But how the hell are the three of them going to make it out of this…? Each tick of the clock on the wall seemed to take an eternity. Each successive report from Vale announced the building progress of the clean-up operation, each time promising that a better opportunity to go rescue Mina was that much closer… But is it close enough…?
Weiss didn't look up this time when the door opened and shut – not until she recognized the voice which addressed her – it wasn't one of the nurses, "Miss Schnee."
Weiss tried not to betray her hope as she answered, rising to her feet, "Colonel Stahlkreuz-"
"I see she's still alive."
"Yeah…" Weiss noticed that the Colonel had come with her rifle, and her jacket was flecked with stone and cement dust. She'd clearly just come from the field. "Yeah…"
"Good. I would prefer not to fire off two-hundred-twenty-one rounds. It is already enough of a waste of ammunition…"
"Hmm…?"
"Never you mind."
"Yes Ma'am…"
Stahlkreuz's eyes narrowed. "You're here alone?"
"Yes… My teammates are…"
"I see. Yet you remain…"
"Y-yes Ma'am…"
Author's Note: Hello all, so there was our low point; next couple chapters are the climax proper. At any rate, I do hope that you enjoyed it, but I do understand that this one was a little shorter, and between more intense chapters, I understand if you just want to see the resolution. It is coming though, and I hope you look forward to it. Also, once again, a big thank-you to KilamriX88 for the edits, and have a good one.