Yang didn't stop. Her fist slammed into Jaune; his Aura activated and she howled at the impact reverberated up her arm and around her body. She pulled her hand back, clutching it, and then sprung back up, moving around him and trying to get to Pyrrha. He tried to move in front of her, but she tripped him and pushed him aside. He tumbled over the couch and Pyrrha prepared to dodge Yang's blow, wanting to be as non-aggressive as possible. Weiss moved her hand just a little, and Ruby cried out.

"Weiss, don't!" She knew that, it Weiss used her Semblance, the collar would go off and she'd be shocked and sent back to prison. Yang, noticing her sister's cry, stopped.

"Weish? What the hell are you doing here?" She said darkly. Both Jaune and Pyrrha stepped back as Weiss walked into the room, glaring at Yang. Ruby let the phone fall and wheeled herself closer to them. Even as Weiss looked at her sister angrily, trying to make her back down through intimidation, Ruby could see that she was shaken by what was happening, and that if she spoke another word, she might snap. Everyone in the room looked at the two women, worried that Weiss might make Pyrrha's mistake.

"I'm...I'm here because I wanted to see you and Ruby. Two of my three most treasured friends. One of them is in prison. You should know; you put her there. And yet you won't...you won't...you won't even come see her!" Everyone could quickly see that the confrontation between Weiss and Yang was different than when Pyrrha stood in front of the blonde. Tears poured from the former heiress' eyes, and Yang's widened in shock.

"I came here, hoping to see you two and find some comfort amongst friends, but clearly that's not going to happen. Yang...do you have any idea what I just came back from? Do you have any idea what I had to deal with on my mission? I saw people die. I saw teammates die! And no matter how hard I tried to save them, they would die! I couldn't stop it! And earlier, when I learned that the company I helped to build, the company that I personally paid to find a cure for Ruby, suddenly dropped me as a client and destroyed the one chance we'd have at saving her...I was useless. And then, even before that, with your damn alcoholism. I didn't see what was happening; I didn't do anything about it. And what about Blake? I couldn't stop her from losing herself to rage and hatred. Do you see a pattern here, Yang? It's that I can't do a damn thing to save anyone! I can't keep anyone safe. I have tried, believe me, I have. I've tried with criminals I hardly know and friends that I love more than anyone, and yet the results are always the same. I have only ever been able to watch as the people around me were hurt...as the people I love continue to be hurt."

"Weiss, you're trying the best you can! We all fail sometimes," Ruby said, trying to be reassuring. Weiss smiled at her, and then continued to talk to Yang.

"You know how that feels, don't you? You know what it's like to fail people. You're failing them right now, Yang. You're failing your friends by keeping them at arm's length. You're not letting anyone help you because you think you don't need help, that you can just will this problem away, but it won't work. You know what it's like to be tormented by that failure, even if the alcohol is dulling it. And so you know how much I'm willing to sacrifice to succeed. I'll use my Semblance. I'll use it and my collar will activate and I'll be shocked into unconsciousness. Then, I'll be taken to prison, and who knows? I could get a cell near Blake. I'll do it just to prove a point, just to prove that I am sick and tired of failing! I just...I just want to make a difference for once, and I know that you want to do the same. And you can. You just have to take a good, long look at what you're doing," Weiss finished, a small sob marking the end of her speech. She raised her arm and Yang stood there, trying harder than ever to see what was going on. She had the sense that something was wrong, but her addled mind couldn't quite understand it. However, she looked very angry. Ruby knew that she had made up her mind. Yang glared at Pyrrha, readying her gauntlets, and Weiss' arm trembled as she prepared to use her Semblance. Pyrrha's Aura flared, as did those of everyone present, and Jaune prepared to jump in front of her and take the brunt of the blast; he knew that his Aura would allow him to take more damage than she could. The crippled woman tried to think. Her mind worked like one of the gears in Professor Ozpin's office, going in circles. She had to do something to stop everyone from being drifted even farther apart. Weiss would be imprisoned for using her Semblance, and both Yang and Pyrrha would face charges for assault. She couldn't let that happen.

Ruby knew exactly how Weiss felt. She had lost the use of her legs, and with them, her use to anyone. She couldn't be a Huntress and was unable to protect people from the Grimm; she couldn't help Yang pay their bills until Weiss and Jaune dropped everything they were doing to get her a job, and she felt that she herself was a liability. She was an excuse to Yang, and a source of regret to everyone else. Now, she had to be more. Ruby had to be more than everything; she had to be what she had been for her entire life and would continue to be until she died. She had to be a sister. And she knew that nothing caught Yang's attention more than seeing her younger sister in danger. Ruby sighed, her vision blurry from her tears, and reached her hand out to Yang as she fell from her wheelchair. She fell to the ground, and Yang whirled around, rushing to her before anyone else could. Weiss let her hand fall limp as she walked slowly to Ruby and Yang, and Pyrrha and the others deactivated their Auras and stood back.

"Shish!" Yang cried out, turning her over and shaking her.

"Ruby..." Weiss said, her eyes wide and filled with tears.

"Yang...don't..."

"I'm not! I'm not! Jusht pleash...don't hurt yourshelf for me. Ever," the blonde said, cradling Ruby in her arms. Ren slowly walked over to the phone, and Weiss stood in front to block Yang's vision, but it didn't matter. She didn't care. She was wholly focused on Ruby.

Ren had called a local rehab center and Yang had been admitted. Everyone had gone their separate ways; Weiss and Ruby went to the former heiress' apartment after saying goodbye and thank you to team JNPR and Sun, and after many profuse apologies from Pyrrha. Sun went off somewhere to call Neptune. The two were lifelong friends and both cared for Yang and the others, and Sun felt that he needed to know what had happened. JNPR, meanwhile, met at Jaune and Pyrrha's apartment. It had been a while since the four teammates had been brought together. They, like team RWBY, had come together at times to talk about their days back at Beacon as well as their current escapades, but it had been quite some time since their last meeting. Ren and Nora were busy with Sun, so their schedule was quite busy, and Jaune had recently been busy trying to get Ruby a job. The four friends felt strange and somewhat guilty, talking amongst themselves as their friend faced a challenge she might not be able to overcome. But at the same time, they wanted the comfort that came from it. They'd been inseparable, and had seen each other through good times and bad. Now, more than ever, they needed each other. Yang's alcoholism didn't just affect her; it took a toll on all of her friends. JNPR was no exception. It made them feel weak and useless, unable and unwilling to do anything about it. It felt, to them, as if they had been dreaming an all too realistic dream. Nothing was dulled; nothing was blurred. Every word and every action was rewarded with sadness and frustration, and yet all they could do was watch. They had watched as Yang spiraled out of control; they had watched as Ruby remained blissfully unaware of the problem, and they had watched as the sisters held each other on the floor, lying amongst glass and blood.

"So...what is there to say?" Nora asked, sitting on a chair nearby. She leaned forward with the chair turned around, her arms and head resting on the back. She looked at everyone, trying to read their faces. Jaune was easy to read. He was shocked. All of his sadness and fear was dulled by sheer surprise. He was still trying to register everything that happened. Pyrrha, too, wasn't hard to understand. She felt guilt. Nora could tell that she was struggling not to blame herself for what had happened. She was normally such a peaceful person outside of the battlefield. She rarely angered and was quick to calm down when she did. But in a single moment, all that vanished. She had struck Yang, her friend, and started a conflict. What's more, she had attacked when Yang was at her worst. She was drunk, confused, and without Aura, and Pyrrha had hit her. She wanted desperately to be angry with herself, but was trying to practice what she preached: Not succumb to doubt. However, while she and Jaune were easy to understand, Ren was not. Nora had known him her whole life, and was closer to him now than ever, as they were a couple, but he was still hard to read. He was a minimalistic, controlled man. He didn't say what he didn't feel needed to be said, and he was used to dealing with the antics and issues of others, mainly Nora herself; he often kept his own doubts and insecurities under control, ignoring them if need be. He lived his life without flair and drama, often seen as a sounding board for others to confide in. Obviously, he felt sadness and some level of responsibility for what happened to Yang. They all did. But his own personal feelings remained unknown.

"I...I don't know. I want to talk. I really do. But I don't know what to say, or whether anything I say will mean a damn thing. I hit her. I got angry, lost control, and made a mistake. If it wasn't for Ruby and Weiss, my actions could have sent Yang down a very dark path. I wanted to help, and I did just the opposite. I was so angry at her for hurting us, her friends, that I did the exact same thing," Pyrrha said, not looking at anyone. Her head was hung down and she clenched her fists at her sides. Her entire body tensed as well, as if she was trying to expel the guilt from her body.

"But it worked out, Pyrrha. In the end, it worked out. And we all made mistakes; we let this go on too long. You shouldn't have to be guilty alone," Jaune replied, sitting next to her on the couch. He wrapped his hand around her clenched fist and smiled. He got no reaction in return. It was as if she didn't even notice him.

"It's not guilt, it's anger! I'm angry at myself for hurting her when she needed help! I know...I know that I didn't mean to do it. I know that I never hated her, and I know that I had good intentions but none of that mattered when the moment came. If you'd asked me what I would have done when I saw her in that state, I would have said that I'd support her. I wouldn't even have though about hurting her. But that would just be an empty promise. When it really mattered, despite all of my good will, I made the the wrong choice!" She spoke with passion, but not in reply to Jaune. She was speaking more to herself than anyone else. Everyone looked at her, eyes wide. She was always a supportive person who selflessly helped others no matter the cost to herself. This was the first time anyone on team JNPR could recall her not doing so.

"As Jaune said, we all made errors in judgment regarding Yang, and what you did wasn't even that. You were angry, just like she was. You both lost judgment. You act as if you consciously chose to hit her, yet that's not the case. She was drunk on alcohol and you were drunk on rage. What you thought had nothing to do with it," Ren said softly. Pyrrha looked up at him as he stared at her with knowing eyes. She knew that he was right. She could see that he knew it, too. He wasn't speaking to reassure her, he was speaking to give her the facts as an objective observer.

"Ren knows what he's talking about," Nora added on.

"...I know," Pyrrha replied. She unclenched her fist and took Jaune's hand in hers.

"I'm sorry...I just feel so alienated from myself. I still can't believe I did what I did," she said. He said nothing, gently kissing her. Nora grinned at Ren, who returned the smile.

"You two haven't changed a bit," she said. Jaune and Pyrrha pulled away from each other sheepishly, their faces slightly red.

"Sorry, sorry. I guess we haven't, huh?" Jaune asked rhetorically. The four friends chuckled a little, finding comfort and reassurance in each other after feeling so helpless at Yang and Ruby's house. They soon began to laugh louder, and were eventually doubling over, laughing so hard their sides began to hurt. Ren was the first to stop, and Nora noticed something off about him.

"Ren?" He was shaking. She could see it. His hands rested in his lap, but she could still see his fingers twitch nervously, and his normally controlled and quiet breathing was louder and ragged. His chest heaved with each breath he took in. It didn't take long for Jaune and Pyrrha to notice as well.

"We can laugh all we want, but I suppose that we can't laugh our worries away," the redhead said, smiling sadly. Ren nodded.

"I'm...I'm still thinking about the moment we walked in. Do you think that Yang was going to..."

"There's no way," Jaune said forcefully, sounding more as if he was trying to convince himself than Ren.

"Ruby did have Crescent out," Nora said thoughtfully, reaching over to rest her hand on Ren's shoulder. He moved his hand to fall on hers, and sighed.

"I don't want to believe it, but Yang looked out of her mind. I honestly can't say with certainty that she wouldn't have hurt Ruby," the taciturn, black-haired man mused.

"But she didn't. And when Ruby fell out of her wheelchair, she was the first one by her side," Nora quickly replied. Pyrrha nodded.

"And we can't say with certainty that she would have, either," she added.

"...I know. But the mere thought sends shivers down my spine," Ren said, not saying anything more.

"Speaking of chilly, I'm turning up the heat. Anyone want something to drink? Something non-alcoholic?" Jaune asked, standing up. He took drink orders and walked to the kitchen, smiling despite everything that had happened as Nora began to ask about pancakes. He was glad to have team JNPR back together. His teammates were his closest friends, Pyrrha being even more, and they lent him strength when he felt weakest. That, he knew, was what friends did.

Weiss opened the door to her apartment, immediately sitting down on the couch and grabbing her snowflake pillow. It had become a habit, hugging it to her chest whenever life was too much to bear. She thought it childish, but she'd learned long ago from Ruby that being childish wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Ruby wheeled herself in and closed the door behind her, moving over to the couch. Weiss quickly got up and went to help her get off of her chair safely before going back to her pillow. The two sat on the couch together, saying nothing. Ruby had offered to come back with Weiss after Yang had been admitted into the rehab center. She knew that something was off about the former heiress. She moved without her usual confidence, seemingly reluctant to move at all. She walked slowly and shakily, her controlled, repressed breaths causing her whole body to shiver. She was trying her hardest not to cry. Ruby could tell. Weiss hated showing weakness and inviting pity. For all of her growth since Beacon, her pride and expectations for herself never lessened. She put so much pressure on herself to do the best she could and be the best she could be, and couldn't help but be angry at herself for failing. She needed a friend by her side, and Ruby wanted to be there. However, she herself was just as troubled. So much had happened with Yang and it happened so fast. At times it hardly seemed real. Her eyes were red and her face was wet from tears, but she had cried her fill. She had let it out, and she wanted to encourage Weiss to do the same. Ruby, now wholly unconcerned with herself, was completely focused on the former heiress.

"So, Weiss...wanna talk?" She asked.

"There's nothing to talk about, is there? I said my piece to Yang. You know how I feel," was the sharp reply. Ruby knew her tone all too well. She always took it when she was at her worst. It was like a desperate attack against the world, trying to intimidate it into making everything okay.

"I do, and that's what worries me. You've been under a lot of pressure. You have two teams now, and you're leading one of them. One's being destroyed, the other's destroying itself, and you want to save them both. And you've been doing your best. You got me a job, you kept most of your team safe on your three-day mission, you helped stop Yang from making a very big mistake, and the reason that you're in the Trenches in the first place is that you stopped a Grimm invasion all by yourself. You've always looked at your failures too harshly, Weiss. You need to think about all the great things you've done and you'll see that you don't fail all the time!"

"...But I fail the people who matter most." Ruby bit her lip, trying to keep from yelling at her friend. Weiss went to get up, putting her pillow aside, and Ruby failed. She was frustrated by her self-pity. It wasn't like her at all. The Weiss she knew moved forward with her head held high, no matter whether she succeeded or failed. She refused to be brought down by the world. No matter how many times she was knocked down, she'd get up and try again. Doubt didn't suit her.

"You are so frustrating! I don't get why you have to keep acting like everything's your fault! You're on a team, and when you're on a team, you don't get to be solely responsible for everything. You share those burdens!" As Ruby finished, Weiss stopped moving. Her fists were clenched, but when she turned around, she was smiling, Crying, but smiling. Ruby smiled too.

"I know, you dunce."

"Could have fooled me."

"Oh hush, you."

"Don't give your leader orders." The two laughed a little, and Weiss went to sit back down.

"I have no idea how you do it, Ruby. I can only take so much. I just...I looked at all the people who had died and all of my friends who were suffering and I felt like I failed them all. I know that it wasn't my sole responsibility, that I'd been trying as hard as I could to help them, but I kept feeling like I'd done everything wrong. I kept telling myself that I had to do better, that if I'd been better I could have...saved everyone, I guess. My mind told me that I was being melodramatic, but I felt so horrible and I wanted the feeling to go away. I couldn't stop pitying myself. But you...even when your life's ambition has been taken from you and your sister and closest friend has been destroying herself right under your nose, you don't give up. I know that you fell from your wheelchair on purpose, to get her to realize how important you are to her and how much you were hurt by her actions. And now you're comforting me. She's your sister, and yet you're the voice of reason and I'm the nervous wreck. How the hell do you do it? How do you convince yourself to keep going?" She asked, looking at Ruby with a mixture of amazement and admiration.

"I...uh, I'm really not that amazing, trust me. I just don't think about things too much. I saw that you were beating yourself up and decided that I wanted to help you. I'm not doing this out of the goodness of my heart or whatever. It's just what feels natural to me," Ruby said, flustered and red-faced. She tripped over her own words. She had always been uncomfortable with praise, and seeing how little she'd changed made Weiss smile. She had been brought down by life, but she kept pushing herself back up.

"I'm pretty sure that's considered doing something out of the goodness of one's heart. It's said that the truly kind don't need to think about helping others. They just do," Weiss replied, smiling coyly.

"Hey, you know I don't like when people say stuff like that! Besides, I'm just simple; I try not to think about too much."

"Simple? Alright. I think we can both agree on that. For better or for worse, you're simple."

"Yep. Simple. Hey, are you hungry? Because I am." Weiss suddenly burst out laughing at Ruby's sudden subject change, while the younger woman looked baffled.

"Weiss, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. So, what do you want to eat?" And Weiss, like her friend, began to stop thinking. Yang would be okay, her comrades in the Trenches would be okay, and she would be too. Now, Weiss was just grateful that Ruby was her friend.

Sun hung up, putting his phone in his pocket. He'd told Neptune everything. His friend had said that he would only be gone for a few more days; he was still training to be an investigator for the Mistral Police Department. So far, he was getting top marks and his professors said that he had a promising career ahead of him. Sun was glad; Neptune had always been smart, and it was good to know that he wasn't wasting his intelligence. He'd been worried about Neptune. For him, like for most of Sun's friends, life had gone downhill after the Fall. He and Weiss had mutually broken up; they had been distant a lot during the Fall, and the two had realized that while they liked each other, their relationship had been forced. They both had tragedy in their lives, and they decided that being in a relationship was just getting in the way. Weiss had to deal with the fall of her family, a family she'd been trying to bring back from the moral gray area her father had so eagerly led it into, and Neptune was reeling from the loss of Scarlet and Sage. They'd been killed by Adam. Sun was devastated as well, but as Adam moved in with Blake and became increasingly involved in his friends' lives, Neptune began to grow angry. He'd been in multiple arguments with Blake about keeping him around. Sun took Blake's word that the former White Fang operative had changed, but Neptune wasn't that trusting. He still cared for Blake and the others, but he decided that he couldn't live a life so close to the man who'd killed two of his closest friends. He soon left Vale to focus on his aspirations of being a detective. But, since Adam's death, he'd been considering making a return. He felt bad for Blake, of course, and hated the human supremest groups that supported and committed the act, but a part of Neptune was glad that the man had been killed. Now, with news of Yang's breakdown, he was certain that he was ready to come back. Sun was glad. At least two members of team SSSN would be together.

The monkey faunus walked past the various tables, going quickly. He had to tell something to an important friend. Near the back of the room, Blake sat patiently, waiting for him to come over. He straightened his shirt and combed back his hair, although he wasn't quite sure why. He and Blake had put their relationship on hold, as things were so complicated with them and their friends. Sun wasn't sure they'd ever get back together. Blake seemed changed these days. She acted like her same old self, but she clearly had no regrets for what she did to Roman. He didn't know how, but he felt that Adam's death had affected her more deeply than she let on. Whatever her misgivings with the man were, he'd been an important part of her life. In Beacon, Sun saw her draw pictures of him in her workbooks. Part of her had regretted leaving him. When Adam had revealed that he was working with Cinder, Blake had almost left the school in the middle of the night to find him. And when, in the final battle, he left the White Fang to save her and hold off an entire army of Grimm that threatened Beacon, she shed tears of joy. Sun didn't know the full extent of his involvement in her life. Not even her teammates fully grasped their relationship, but he had been there from the beginning. He'd been her mentor and her first friend. He kept her alive and taught her how to stay that way. She might have disagreed with him ideologically, but it was because of him that she'd lived through so much. His death hit her hard.

"Blake...hey. You look, uh...good, for someone who's sharing a cell with Cinder Fall," Sun said, waving awkwardly.

"She knows to keep her distance. But that's not what you're here to talk about, is it? You look like you've just seen a ghost. Did something happen?" Blake asked, her initially playful tone giving way to one of worry. Sun sighed. He supposed that he looked tired, and he had shed his share of tears after Yang's breakdown.

"It's about Yang."

"Yang? What happened?" Blake asked, sounding even more urgent than before. Ever since the blonde cut off contact with her, she'd been worried. The two were very close, and Yang was usually the first person she would come to when she had a problem. Like everyone on team RWBY, they shared a special bond, and while Yang may have been upset with her, she never got angry at Yang. She'd wanted to finish her work with Roman, but she knew that it must have been shocking for her friend to see her in such a crazed state.

"Yang, uh...you know about all the tension with her drinking problem, right? I'm guessing Ruby and Weiss told you."

"I do."

"It kind of blew up into a massive argument. Pyrrha may have punched her in the face, and she may have tried to get revenge by firing Ember Celica and maybe she pushed Jaune, and Ruby may have just fallen off of her wheelchair and Weiss could have possibly threatened to use her Semblance and get thrown in prison...a lot happened. Now Yang's been admitted to rehab and things are pretty depressing," Sun explained awkwardly, blurting out whatever came to mind. At first, Blake said nothing. Her fists clenched and her eyes burned with an almost murderous fury, but she said nothing. She looked at Sun but didn't appear to see him; he felt as if she were staring a hole through his head. He shifted his seat away from her gaze and went to tap her on the shoulder, not thinking about the visiting rules, when she shot up from her seat, prevented from reaching her full height due to the handcuffs, and screamed.

"Dammit!" Sun's eyes widened and he looked around the room. Prisoners and visitors from all around stared, and the prison guard walked over. Sun grinned sheepishly.

"Sorry...I gave her some bad news. Nothing to see here, officer," he said. The guard glared at them and then walked away. After a few seconds, the few people present in the room fell back to talking and Blake sat down, burying her head in her hands. Sun sighed, forcing himself not to give her a hug as the guard glared at their table. He felt horrible. Blake hadn't seen Yang for quite some time, and she worried about her a lot. He knew that she wanted nothing more than to break free from her cuffs and hurry to Yang's side, but she was stuck in the prison.

"She...she didn't come to see me. Not once. I hate it. I don't hate her for it, but I hate the fact itself. I wanted to know how she's doing. I wanted to see her, to hear her voice, to know that she's still alive and that she wanted for me to be a part of her life and for her to be a part of mine...I know that this might be for the best, but I wish she came to see me before it, so I could try to help her or at least know what was coming. And Ruby...she must be devastated," Blake muttered. still hiding her face in her palms.

"Ruby's tough. She'll get through this," Sun reassured her. Blake sighed.

"I know...I know. And how about you? Will you get through this?" She asked, slowly lifting her face up to meet his gaze. He grinned.

"Yeah, I will. Neptune's coming back, and in the meantime, I've been hanging with Ren and Nora a lot."

"I know you tried to help Yang more than anyone. You tried to confront her."

"Yeah...that didn't go so well. Luckily, Ruby knows how to handle her big sis." Blake smiled, chuckling a little.

"She sure does...I hate to say this, seeing as how you came all the way out here to see me, but..." Sun got up and nodded.

"I got it. You want some Blake time to think about this. I could probably use some more Sun time, myself. See you. Wouldn't wanna be you," he joked, waving as he walked away.

"Not even with these stylish handcuffs on?" Blake replied.

"Nope."

"You're missing out. They've very fashionable here."

"I'm sure." The prison guard, seeing that the visit was done, came over to Blake and took her away. She looked back at Sun in time to see him disappear around a corner, and sighed. It was still the morning, and now all she wanted to do was go to sleep.

To be continued! I got this one out faster than usual for two reasons: I was motivated. First of all, the drama with Yang isn't something that can wait; I want to keep going on that until it's resolved. Second of all, I want more Blake in the story. My second favorite RWBY character has been sorely neglected, and its time that I give her the spotlight. Anyway, I hope to get the next chapter out soon!

Now for a special announcement: As you all know, RWBY volume 2 has finished, which is sad. That means a whole year until more RWBY goodness! Although, we FINALLY got to see Adam, which made me so happy that I exploded. Emotionally, of course.