She had fallen asleep in his arms, lulled by his soft breath and warm embrace. When she woke, his bed was empty but a thermos of hot cholate sat on the coffee table, still steaming. A glance at the clock told her all she needed to know. Class was in session, and unlike most Beacon faculty, he insisted on lecturing more often than not. He invested himself in everything he did, and his desire to be a hunter was one thing that Ruby had always admired.

Rubbing her face, she checked her scroll only to see two messages waiting there. One was from Goodwitch, and the other was from Yang. She replied to the latter, saying that her mission was done, but she didn't say anything else. There was nothing else to say in the span of a text message. To the former she didn't reply at all. Glynda had only sent instructions to come to her office, but the reason why eluded Ruby.

Dressing herself and schooling her hair into some manageable mop atop her head, she made a beeline to the blonde woman's office. It was there that she found Glynda hunched over a terminal, tapping away at several keys as she input a whole new series of information. "Come in Ruby, have a seat."

"I'd rather stand, if that's okay…"

Glynda sighed. "I'd rather you didn't." The woman said closing down her work. "Sit down, please. This will take longer than a few moments." She reached into the drawer of her desk, grabbing a bottle of pills and a bottle of water. Pulling only one from the bottle she slid it across the desk, the water following soon after. "Furthermore, I would advise you swallow that."

"What is it?" Ruby asked. "I hope you know I don't just blindly swallow pills. Not even from my own sister, let alone my friends."

Glynda set her jaw. "Hunters and huntresses under Ozpin's employ have more liberties with their bodies than others. What you do is up to you, but, I don't think I have to tell you that unprotected sex can have consequences."

"He told you!?"

"You told me." Glynda shot back quickly. "More accurately your tracking device did."

Ruby's eyes went wide as her fingers lifted to the back of her neck, where a little lump rested under her skin. She had forgotten about it. She was supposed to get it removed as soon as she got back from her mission, but the thought that it was there completely slipped her mind. "Shit…"

"That tracking device is able to send instant readouts on your aura level. More importantly, it alerts my scroll as soon as someone else's aura, or unknown material enters your body." She then leveled her gaze. "Imagine my surprise when Oobleck's own aura chimes on the readouts."

"I…" Ruby looked away then. "I was burned pretty badly…" Ruby said as she grabbed the morning-after pill and the bottle of water, swallowing both.

"You don't have to give me the details, Ruby. I know you stayed with him, but that is all I know." Glynda licked her lips then. "However, I jump to conclusions because you and I are very similar. It takes quite a bit to turn our stomachs. I'd imagine it would take something insurmountable to send you running back to Beacon and into the arms of another."

"I was…knocked into a Grimm's pool. It felt like a tar pit, but worse."

"You what?" Glynda asked removing her glasses.

It was no small admission, and the damages it could have done were completely incalculable. Few humans could survive falling into one, where the lost souls of angry Grimm lingered before crawling out to do damage on the world. Unlike the Grimm, the pits themselves were rare sights, very little were known about the properties held deep within.

"I was tracking down another one of those stupid nevermore from the mountains. A bunch of people in the village were complaining about the population. 'Bastards have been reproducing in droves' was the headman's exact phrasing. It sounded like there was a nest, so on my way back from the mission, I detoured. It wasn't a nest though, it was a series of pools. The best I could do was blast the hole in the cave shut…but…I slipped…things get…hazy after that."

There was one common truth to be held about those Grimm's pools. Everyone who fell into a pit had been changed in some inexplicable way. Some records recounted that survivors became unhinged from reality, brutally unstable. Others sunk deep into depression, finding nothing but hopelessness in their profession and livelihood. A hand full of people faded entirely from existence, falling into the murky darkness never to be dragged out or seen from again.

"You must have gotten out somehow."

"I was dragged out."

"By who?"

"I don't know." Ruby murmured, shivering as she thought back. "I can feel the Grimm crawling on me." She said sickly, swallowing back a mouth full of bile at the thought. "It's like they're under my skin, I just…" She had no other words. Couldn't find them last night, and couldn't discover them now. She dragged her gaze up to meet Glynda's own. She stood from her chair crossing the room to grab Glynda's hand, placing it against her skin. "You can feel them, can't you?"

"No, I'm sorry, I can't."

"Like bugs." Ruby described. "Thousands of them just…skittering…there."

"Ruby, I can't feel anything."

"But they're all over!"

Understanding smacked into Glynda like a ton of bricks, and her aura flared knowingly around the younger woman. "Ruby Rose, there are no Grimm on you. I doubt any could survive inside of you. You are not the sort of person who even maintains such negative qualities." Still, Ruby looked relaxed now, at peace for the first time since she had even stepped into the room.

Glynda wondered just what Ruby's experience with those pools had been. Retracting her aura, Ruby staggered limply, and Glynda caught her. "Come along now, we have to get you to Ozpin. Perhaps he will know what to do."