Sorry for the longer than average break! Let's get right into it!

Chapter 28

Roughly a week or so following the dance, Glynda Goodwitch found herself in the unfortunate position of being yet to entirely recover.

Not physically, of course, since she'd not been injured in the slightest while fighting with the assailant that had done something to the CCT, aside from some minor strain on her aura that had all but fully healed an hour or so after the fact, but…

Mentally… perhaps emotionally, too…

She was compromised, wasn't she?

In quite a few more ways than one.

She rather desperately wanted to thrust that line of thought aside entirely, to ignore it and move along further, to try and think of anything else.

Much like it had been for the last few weeks, it continued to not go particularly well for her that day.

She brewed herself some tea, tried to cool her head whilst simultaneously warming her body. It didn't work. She tried iced cream, the mint she still had in her freezer, and had a few scoops. It didn't work. She tried alcohol, breaking into the bottle of wine that Port had gotten her for her birthday two or three years ago, and that she had not even touched since then.

It, too, didn't work.

And it came with the unfortunate side effect of making her extremely tired.

Yes, Glynda Goodwitch had always been the least entertaining kind of drunk. Some people, like Port, became even more boisterous, even more crazed. Some, like Oobleck, suddenly became feisty, rude, downright confrontational. Some, like Ozpin, mellowed out entirely.

And Glynda just got sleepy.

And so it was that Glynda Goodwitch received a knock on her door, wearing nothing but her night clothes – which consisted of a pair of black, comfortable shorts and a white tee – and she regrettably realized that no, she could not sleep through the entire day, she had to go about actually doing things.

A part of her brain complained that it was Saturday, and that she should really be allowed to not have to do things on Saturday.

A second knock at the door seemed to disagree.

"Just a moment." Glynda called towards the entrance as she retreated back into her bedroom, dressed as quickly as she could, and moved back to the door.

She opened it, and her eyes widened minutely.

"Uh… hey." Emerald Sustrai smiled up at her. "I uh… I said I'd come by once all that mess with the dance was over."

Glynda nodded her head, not really all there. There was a part of her, a part of her that Glynda wasn't really sure was good or bad for her, that was mildly disappointed that the visitor was not Cinder.

Regardless of whether or not it was a fair thing to feel, Glynda shoved it back into the furthest recesses of her mind, and locked it away for the time being.

She smiled at the girl in front of her, and escorted her inside with a nod.

She immediately completed the agreed upon ritual for discussions with Emerald, which was to say that she procured the girl a bowl of ice cream – normally she'd have procured two, but she'd quite literally eaten four scoops no more than an hour and a half ago – and set it down in front of her on the coffee table, before making for her desk, taking the chair, and pulling it up so that she sat opposite Emerald.

She waited for the girl to speak first. She didn't want to rush her, or even put any pressure on her to speak at all. If she desired it, the two of them could simply partake of some ice cream, perhaps have some tea, and then she could depart.

She wouldn't, though. Glynda could tell by the spark in the girl's eye. She had come here for a reason, and she was not about to back away from it.

It was taking her a moment to speak, and Glynda, idly, wondered if perhaps her initial assessment had been wrong. If it wouldn't simply be better for her to speak until she could collect herself.

"Would you mind if I asked you some questions, Emerald? Casual things, nothing heavy."

Emerald's eyes widened a bit, though after a moment where she seemed to consider her options, she nodded her head.

"Actually, yeah, that might help. I've got the sentiment, just… need the words."

Glynda had been there more times than she could count.

"Then, first of all, how did you enjoy the dance last weekend?"

Emerald hummed quietly at that, thinking for a moment.

"It was alright, I suppose." She spoke evenly, seeming to have no real qualms in discussing this. "I wasn't originally going to go, but Penny dragged me along."

"Ah, Ms. Polendina?"

Glynda had… er… heard about Emerald and Penny's midnight rendezvous, so to speak, into a hotel in Vale from James personally. The man had been beyond livid, more upset than Glynda had ever seen, and she had a feeling that lent in large part to the fact that he could not, reasonably, do anything about his daughter's lost chastity.

After all, she had fully consented, and seemed to quite like Emerald.

So, the girl's father could throw a hissy-fit, but in the end, it was not up to him who she associated with.

…Well, unless he pulled the 'technically you're a robot and you need to do what I tell you' card, but James was far too kind-hearted a person for that.

He loved Penny like a daughter, that much was clear from his soft-spot for the girl. He would never put her in harm's way.

"Yeah." Emerald said, and Glynda had to pull back on her expression, lest she smile at Emerald's expense. "She's… unruly at the best of times, but in a completely… I guess I'd say she's purehearted. She has no concept of… deceit or trickery. No lies. She's just… honest, and good."

The way Emerald said it, Glynda took to understanding that she had never once encountered such a person. Someone who only saw the good in the world. Glynda had known several, but even she understood that they were rarities. To be cherished and protected.

Because they didn't often last long in their line of work. Far too easily brought down to earth…

Or worse, taken from them altogether.

"I'm glad you found someone like that." She said, to get her mind off of darker times.

There was a pause.

"Two someone's." Emerald said, her face going just the smallest bit red. "You're just like that too, in a different way."

Glynda almost balked at the complement, but held firm. She did noticeably stutter, however, clearing her throat and trying to play off the–

…No. No, she was trying to be better about this.

"Thank you, Emerald." Glynda spoke, accepting her praise with a bit of an embarrassed air about her. "Your words mean much. Now, what were you saying about Penny?"

"Oh, right." Emerald shook her head, muttering something. "Basically, I wasn't going to go, but she asked me to, and initially I was going to put my foot down, but…" She groaned. "I'm so damned weak."

Glynda, in this single instance, found that utterance humorous.

"I think that reflects well on your character, Ms. Sustrai. To be weak to the ministrations of a purehearted girl. Especially one you're so close with."

Emerald scowled somewhat, but she seemed to acquiesce the point, for she said no more on that particular matter.

"Anyways, Ruby came along with us, and so the three of us went out as friends."

Friends, hm? Glynda couldn't help the smallest of smiles. It was clear, at least, that Emerald did not know that Glynda knew about her relationship with Ms. Polendina, and was trying to not mention such.

Glynda decided to let the girl off easy by not bringing any attention to it.

"We had a nice time." Emerald finally said, with the tiniest smile. "I guess then I sort of… found something to say to you, too, although I've hardly managed to word it well enough."

Glynda took a step back then, leaving the floor, as it were, to Emerald.

"I… I guess I…" The girl hesitated, and even though Glynda wanted nothing more than to cheer her on, to tell her that she could say anything she had to say, and that no matter what it was, Glynda would never think any less of her…

She held back. Because this wasn't about her.

This was about Emerald.

So, she sat still. And she believed in her.

/

Emerald didn't think she had ever felt quite this stifled, quite this incapable of speech, before this conversation.

Of course, she'd had rather difficult things to talk her way out of before, but this felt… somehow more major than arguing with Cinder, and earning a slap on the face, or trying to talk down a man who'd just caught her in the act of thievery, before the police could hear him.

Because unlike all of those things, this felt weighty. Weighty, and real.

Emerald could not muck this up.

So, she took a deep breath, and, when she felt she was truly ready, she spoke.

"I think I realized something about myself that I'd never really accepted before." Emerald spoke, and she fidgeted with her hands, with her thumbs and her fingers. "I never accepted that I… could care, about people. Could genuinely… want them to be a part of my life. I…"

She swallowed.

"When you grow up on the streets, you learn to accept certain realities." Emerald said, and her eyes glazed over somewhat, her vision returning to that time, to a decade and a half ago, her first memory of being offered a single piece of bread from an older homeless man. He'd smiled her way, and then…

And then he'd just been gone.

She'd never seen him again. Never experienced that kindness again.

"You learn to accept that everyone you meet is temporary. You learn to accept that no lodging can last forever. That no territory can be protected by just oneself, and that any alliances made are nothing if food starts to suddenly become scarce. I learned all of those things before I'd turned ten. I learned… I learned harsher realities, too. I learned how to care for a wound, no matter how messily, because if you didn't, it would become infected, and you would either get lucky or die. I learned that if you could afford it, you should never, never count on luck, because by our very nature, we were born the unlucky ones. The unwanted. The destitute. The thrown away."

Emerald let out a harsh breath then.

"And you learn to accept that no one… no one will ever care about you without expecting something in return. That a bond is only as heavy as the gifts that exchange hands between. That the moment you stop being useful, it's a knife in the back, or waking up to find your supplies gone. Or… or worse. Some… some got it worse."

Emerald didn't speak of them. No one did. Those people who just went missing one day, and were never found.

The dead didn't go missing. Because homeless dead were normally only found by other homeless. Frequenting homeless alleys, walking homeless turf. If someone was gone, then that meant…

Emerald shook her head, biting down on her lip.

"And I learned… I learned the hard way that trust is not something to give to anyone. I did once, when I was young. Maybe… maybe eleven? An older girl had offered to take me in, give me food, supplies, shelter… I trusted her. I really did. I think… I think I may've loved her, even. And then… and then we were attacked by another little… gang, I suppose you could call it. And when I said we could fight together…"

Emerald laughed, then, a hollow, brittle thing. She pressed her hand to the small of her back, or as close as she could, and felt under the cloth the scarred skin there.

"She stabbed me in the back." Emerald said, finding it almost humorous now. "Literally and figuratively. I… She left me for dead, and the only reason I survived was because none of the kids looting us had been aiming to kill. Just to knock us around and take our stuff. Even… even the kids on the streets don't really like to take a life if they can help it."

It occurred to Emerald that she had been speaking for so long, that realistically, Glynda Goodwitch could've stood up, gone to the bathroom, and come back. She'd been talking so long that she was almost positive the woman would've simply been too bored to listen, far off in some other world.

…But when Emerald looked up, she was almost unsurprised to find that, no, she wasn't looking away.

She was staring right at her, her eyes glued to Emerald, her attention rapt.

That… that right there was why she was…

Emerald's heart ached. It ached because it was full, but broken, but healing, but frayed. It ached because she had no idea whether to trust this feeling in her gut that she had not allowed herself to feel, to truly feel, in oh so long.

Not even Cinder she had trusted. She had loved Cinder, but that was a different emotion.

She knew that Cinder was using her. She'd always known.

She just went along anyway.

Ms. Goodwitch… she got the feeling that she was…

She finally, finally, finally worked up the courage she needed to say the real meat of what she needed to. To finally just… just come forward and lay her cards out on the table.

And by putting cards on the table at all, by risking something, opening herself up to being hurt.

…

What if she can't understand what if she doesn't what if she won't look at me why what could I do if she rejected me because I'm such a fucking weirdo who can't manage to not form some kind of bond why am I even here I should run run away don't don't don't –

"I never had a mother." Emerald forced past her lips, not able to look up. She got the urge to tell the woman something that no one, no one else on Remnant knew, and before she could help herself, she was telling it to her. "There's a politician in Vale. He has… mint green hair, and red eyes. I noticed the similarities off of a news broadcast one day when I was thirteen or fourteen." Emerald shrugged. "I could never really be sure, but… I guess I just had a feeling."

Ms. Goodwitch nodded sympathetically, and from anyone else, Emerald would've hated that pity. Hated the empty sentiment. The empty 'aww's' and 'you poor thing's'. But…

But she knew that Glynda Goodwitch wasn't like that. She knew she would… she knew she would…

She bit down on her bottom lip, and like turning in a screw with her fingernail, slowly, agonizingly, she pushed onwards.

"But I think… I think that if I'd ever had a… if I could ever look at someone like that, uhm…"

She couldn't help the way she briefly stuttered, her lip wobbling. She hated how weak she was.

Just say it just say it you've come too far to back out now so stop hesitating you weak worthless pathetic–

She felt warmth upon her palm, and it snapped her out of her self-flagellation in time to see Glynda Goodwitch squeeze her hand within her own.

And she just nodded, not saying anything.

She'd… she'd been so quiet, letting Emerald ramble on like this. She'd been so… so considerate, and kind, and she'd always been here for her, an open door to talk, someone to bounce off of when she needed it, and why had she denied herself this for so much time over some… over some silly…

Except it wasn't silly, was it? It was Emerald, for the first time since she was a child…

"It's you." The words came out clipped, and weak, and so very, very small. And Emerald wanted nothing more than to shrivel into a small husk and die right then and there. "I mean… when I think of someone who… would be a uhm… who would be–"

And Glynda squeezed down on her hand just a bit more firmly.

"I'm here."

Somehow that was enough.

"If… there was anyone who I would ever think of as a mom…" Emerald took a breath, and finally, she said it all. "It's you."

And Ms. Goodwitch's smile, then, did horrible, terrible things to Emerald's heart. It ripped it in twain and sutured it back to health, and knitted wounds together that she had not even known she'd had. And…

"I'm so happy to hear that, Emerald."

She felt blubbery, and weak, and a million other terrible things, and before she could stop herself, she was rambling.

"So you don't think I'm… weird, or…"

"Emerald, of course not."

"I just… it's gotta' be weird, right? For me to… to think about–"

"Emerald, look at me."

The tone of Ms. Goodwitch's voice was not clipped. It was not angry, or upset.

It was said with such warmth that it almost burned Emerald. Such warmth that it made her, however briefly, want to retreat back into the cold. Because she was afraid of it. Afraid that if she got too close… if she stayed within that warmth, like the wolves once had by the fires of man, then she, too, would be domesticated, and brought to heel, and she'd be rendered toothless.

…But she looked up into the woman's eyes regardless, and saw the verdant green orbs, with the smallest hint of water within, meeting her own.

"You are a wonderful young girl, Emerald." She spoke. "And I will tell you this as many times as is necessary until you stop belittling yourself. Until you can recognize the truth in that as well. You are strong, and smart, and hard-working, and fiercely loyal. I do not think you are weird, or anything of the sort. You are someone I care deeply about. I want you to know that."

Emerald wasn't really sure why her eyes were welling up, but she hid that feeling in an awkward attempt at a laugh.

She could tell Glynda had seen it, but that the woman wouldn't call her on it.

"So, I want to make a promise to you, Emerald." Glynda said, and she reached out, and took both of Emerald's hands in her own.

"I want to be there for you, Emerald, day, or night." Glynda said, and she was smiling so radiantly that Emerald, a creature of dark, found herself almost blinded. "Whenever you need."

…It was so painfully easy for her to let down her guard, then. So painfully easy for her to just… to just take a sledgehammer to the dam around her heart, to finally take down that wall there. Because Emerald had always been trusting. She had always had a big heart. She had always wanted to feel.

But she had had such things taken from her by the life she'd been forced to lead. Had such things stolen away, and tread upon, and burned and buried.

And yet somehow, the woman in front of her had dug them up, and dusted them off, and…

And they looked good as new, somehow.

And finally… finally Emerald admitted it to herself.

She cared about Ms. Goodwitch.

Ms. Goodwitch had finally won her over. Had made even her jaded heart admit defeat.

And it was the greatest a loss had ever felt. It was all she could do to hold back on the frankly beaming smile that was summoned onto her features then. All she could do to hold back the wellspring behind her eyes.

"Thank you." She murmured; her voice uneven.

"You're very welcome, Emerald."

She nodded her head. And then she stood from the couch, and moved her way over to the woman's side.

And if Ms. Goodwitch noticed her tears, and certainly she did, she did not comment on them. If she noticed the way Emerald's shoulders shook, she only pulled her forward, and wrapped her arms around them.

If she noticed the depths of Emerald's affection, the amount of love for this maternal figure that she carried, the fact that she clung so harshly to her back, like a man starved of water suddenly being dropped in the middle of a lake…

Then the woman only pulled her in tighter.

/

It happened a week after the dance. Jaune marked it down, mentally, because it had been an auspicious day. Because it had been the day before his… his maybe-date with Pyrrha out into Vale to get dinner, and a movie, and holy shit he couldn't even believe that, but Nora kept groaning every time he asked Pyrrha if she was sure, like really, really sure she wanted to go out with him tomorrow.

And every time she had nodded, a tiny smile on her face that seemed to contain some secret Jaune was not privy to.

He suspected it was his usual obliviousness at play, because frankly, even Ruby appeared to have figured it out if her exasperated sighing was anything to go by.

And being behind Ruby on the social-uptake was never a good sign.

…He was rambling. Mentally, to be sure, but rambling nonetheless.

Back on topic.

It had been around… maybe seven or so in the evening? He had been talking with Ren about what one did on first dates, what the etiquette was, what he was supposed to wear, and even though Ren insisted that he'd never actually been on a date, and he and Nora were really just friends – yeah, right, who did they think they were fooling? Jaune wasn't blind – he still pestered the man.

And then, idly, something had come up in conversation.

"Hey, so, has anyone else noticed that Team RWBY totally stole our boy!?"

Jaune turned to Nora with an amused glint in his eye, already preparing to hear another round of antics from the girl.

"I mean, Mercury was our friend!" Nora said, pouting with a mix of genuine pettiness and joking mirth. "We need to go and steal him back! It's only fair! Theft for theft! Blood for blood!"

When Jaune had thought about it, he'd realized that, actually, yeah, it had been quite a while since Mercury had hung out with them to play games. Almost a month. That wasn't horribly long, but it was long enough to feel the man's absence.

Especially whenever they played Supreme Smash Sisters. Jaune blamed Mercury for essentially ruining it as a casual party game for all of them, for every single member of JNPR – including Pyrrha, amazingly enough – was now a decently high rated player on the ranked leaderboard of the game.

Hell, Ren was top 500 in Sanus. Jaune pretended that that didn't annoy him whenever he stared at his measly rating of 2600.

But the mention of Mercury had caused the smallest of stirs at the back of Jaune's head. Enough so for him to frown, and caress his chin, and mutter something to himself.

"Mercury? What am I…"

Some part of him was trying to draw some conclusion somewhere, but he didn't know where.

…At least until Nora quite literally called the boy, and he picked up with a confused "Hello?"

"MERCURY!" Nora shouted more than loud enough for the man to have heard them without having called him. "What do you have to say for yourself! You have betrayed us! Abandoned us to… to schmooze with Team RWBY!"

Mercury was silent for quite a while.

"…You guys didn't invite me to hang out. RWBY did."

And Jaune supposed that, to a boy who'd never had friends before, that logic made a frightening amount of sense.

"Now do you mind? We're doing movie night. Yang is going to kill me if I make her keep Czar Wars paused any longer."

There was some laughter from all of them as Nora harrumphed and hung up on their friend.

"The nerve of some people."

And for a moment all was well. Jaune was laughing with the rest of them about nothing. Idly thinking about what it must be like to get to watch Czar Wars for the first time, to not have already been spoiled on the fact that Marth Pater was Ruth's fa–

And then it hit him.

Jaune's mind travelled back in time months, back to the tiniest, littlest slip-up on Mercury's part.

Something he'd all but forgotten about.

"Sorry, we watched this movie the other day about a dude in this weird virtual world thing, and there was like a red pill and… and a blue pill too… anyways, we gave her that as a nickname."

The reason for Mercury's white face, the sudden distraction, the changing of subject…

Suddenly, Jaune put it all together, and his heart practically sank.

Oh…

Green and black eyes staring at him, changing every so often. She comes by with Mercury whenever the man drops by to play games. She sits on his bed occasionally, and initially he'd thought that maybe she'd had some crush on him, up until she'd promptly – and silently – laughed in his face when he'd asked her out. And Jaune takes that rejection better than most, given its nothing quite as bad as the very public rejections of Weiss, but even still, after a while, they build a rapport, and he feels like sort of, in a weird way, they're frie–

Information that Ruby had given him flows through him now as well.

Hadn't spoken could be coincidence, odds aren't low that someone arriving for fifteen seconds wouldn't speak but is apparently incredibly short and she's perhaps the single shortest person he's ever met and she has mismatched eyes and a dangerous smile and just about everything else he can remember including an umbrella that he's seen from time to time and oh gods–

Neopolitan, Roman's newest ally, was a member of Team Chamomile.

Her name was Mint.

End Chapter 28

I wrote all of this quite literally at 1 in the morning on Christmas day (So I guess it was technically the 26th but you get my point) so that's why it's a bit short. My apologies. I mostly took the week off in all honesty (And the night that I'm posting this I'm sick as all hell, and am going to bed in roughly an hour. Sorry about that, but I hope you enjoyed it regardless!).

Exciting stuff on the horizon though. Stuff that I've been wanting to write since the start of this story. I'm thrilled to finally be here.

Anyways, next time, more stuff. See you next week!