Long ago, on a day where the dreary sky beat down on the mountain city of Mistral with a furious onslaught of rain, a young Blake's glare bore into the back of Adam's head as the young man pretended, he was bleeding profusely from his swollen eye.

Tension filled his every stride, keeping him stuck in fight-or-flight mode, fresh adrenaline pulling his muscles together as if bracing for a punch. She could tell he was glaring into space, not just because she knew him and his grumbling antics, but because she could hear him attempt to muffle his pained hisses every time, he tried to narrow his eyes. And he just would not stop. She could hardly believe this man was supposed to be the older one out of their little duo when he also managed to be so childish.

"Are you going to tell me what the hell that was all about?"

He snorted, still refusing to face her. "I don't have to justify myself to you."

Her hand shot outwards and yanked back his shoulder. Even as the rain washed over them both, drenching them until their clothes were heavy and dripping, Blake could feel the cold numbness overwhelmed by the heat radiating from his body – from his aura and semblance – see the droplets of water turn to steam the instant they touched him. "Adam." She froze up, his gaze now forced upon her with all it's intensity and shame, now with a swelling patch of wounded flesh stretching over his eye, perfectly presenting the SDC brand.

It was rare to see Adam without his mask, it was practically his face. A thin layer of metal 'flesh' protecting his from the pitying stares, from them seeing what was held within. A face that was now clenched tightly as bloodied fragments in his hand. Even without the swelling, the area around his eyes always looked irritated, a raw nerve that wasn't supposed to be exposed to the world.

She could feel the inconsistent rhythm of his heart quicken to an erratic tempo under her fingertips, flushed skin spreading like a rash, his eyes flickering with a fresh layer of panic and shame. As far as Adam was concerned, he was laid bare before her, before the stragglers of the street passing them by, vulnerable to attack from all angles. It left him shivering, not from the cold, she knew the wet slaps hammering down his cheeks didn't register at all for him, shaking from a deadly cocktail of righteous fury and overwhelming anxiety rattling his insides and with no target to unleash it upon.

With another sharp tug, Blake managed to easily drag him along as she quite easily blitzed through the pocket of ignorant people and slipped into the nearest alleyway without an eyebrow raised. Adam couldn't resist, not in his weakened, faceless state, just fall into Blake's hands and disappear into the darkened corners of Mistral's tightly packed back alleys.

There was little in the way of light to be found in the narrow passage, a prime spot for muggings, a prime spot to make people disappear. That was Blake's idea anyway, finding herself pressing Adam against a grime-covered wall, a sliver of sunlight leaking over the edge of the roofs above and highlighting his jawline. The rest of his face, and his body for that matter, were sheltered under the darkness, masking his features once more. She could provide him at least that comfort.

The mask was the chain that kept everything locked away, held this unstable mass of fried nerves and scarred tissue together, made it a stable, working body. It kept him as the man, as the revolutionary, it gave him a face. Without it, he was worthless again, powerless again, nothing again. Underneath it all, he was an animal again, cattle owned by the brand that blinded his left eye.

"We're supposed to be partners." Blake was hesitant to continue, a sudden spike of fear stabbing at her nerves now that she could no longer make out much of Adam's expression, but she pushed forward, pressing her hand over the clenched fist that held his broken mask. In the damp, claustrophobic darkness, Adam's body seemed to relax. "Why do you insist on treating me like the enemy?"

"How else am I supposed to treat you when you keep getting in my way?" He tried to lean forward so he could leer over her with an implied glare. "You- Gah!" Only to quickly find the alley's space didn't allow such a luxury, leading to him awkwardly knocking his chin against her nose and destroy any momentum his words would have had. "You were supposed to be back in Menagerie by now."

"And you were supposed to be keeping a low profile. Not getting into rows with other Faunus."

"He wasn't a Faunus." Adam spat "He wasn't even a bootlicker. Just a disgrace."

It was Blake's turn to scoff, biting back a groan as grumbled. "Is that really what this is all about?" She prodded her forefinger against his chest, digging in until she could see his shirt crinkle, going on the attack before he could bite back. "Not everyone is ready to pick up a blade and risk their life for the cause, Adam. I thought you knew that."

Anyone else at any different time would have had him growling for breaking his personal boundaries, for hounding him like this. But Blake managed to stifle his bark for now, her gaze never leaving his shrouded face, allowing a simple earnest gaze to push back his vitriol. "No, no, that I get." He didn't lose the flickers of anger stoking his passion, but it was clearly weaker, more digestible than it could have been, letting himself be pressed limply against the wall. "We're made of sterner stuff than a lot of people, I know that, I'm at peace with that." She heard the impact of brickwork being fractured into tiny chunks long before she noticed his arm was moving in tandem with the rise of his tone, unrefined words forced out through gritted teeth. "Those guys back there? They weren't afraid. They were in denial. Guy smacks their dinner outta their hands, spits on 'em, and then they're trying to tell me how it's just fine. How it's just a misunderstanding. How they deserved it."

Regaining some momentum as he spoke, he tried to lean forward once more, but Blake refused to move. And somehow, that made him feel weaker than the guy who punched his lights out only a few minutes ago. "They'd rather bend over backwards to justify their oppression than even quietly acknowledge that something's wrong. And they have the gall to lecture us about it." He found his hands resting on her shoulders, squeezing tightly for some sense of stability in a world he only saw through unstable eyes. Staring down at her, desperately searching for the answers that would free him of his own niggling doubts. "Can you honestly tell me that doesn't make your blood boil? Make you feel like everything we've done is just getting cast aside because it's not… Not convenient enough for these people?"

She didn't answer. She turned away, her shoulders tensed up, then loosened down, and then she turned back. A million thoughts and arguments passed in matter of seconds, and she didn't answer. Instead, she pivoted. "People cope in a lot of ways. It doesn't concern you that some strangers you'll never meet again aren't expressing themselves the way you want them to."

He pushed off her, bitterness pulling his face together in a tightly knit expression as he wondered off deeper into the alley. There was no room, but he could at least make distance, give himself somewhere to breathe, where she wasn't knocking his thoughts off kilter. "Of course, you'd take their side." A dry chuckle escaped his lips, lazily gesturing back to her with a limp thumb instead of turning to face her. "You always talk a tough game, but you have the same bleeding heart as your father."

He expected her to blow up at him, meet him with vitriol of her own, just break that calm, if a little irritated, exterior for one minute and let him see what was behind her mask for a change. She didn't give him that. She paused, he probably would have seen the shock or offence at the insult to her family pass if he were looking, but she didn't take the bait. "Is this you saying this, or Sienna Khan?"

The flash of offence racing through his body couldn't be hidden by the darkness, briefly looking as if he would ask her to directly call him a 'sheep' or growl that he could make up his own damn mind, but he bit them back. His shoulders came up for a stiff shrug. "Does it matter? She's right." The rest of his body shifted – Blake barely registering how the zipper of his jacket scratched her chin – in response to him shaking his head. "You can't save people who don't even want to admit that they're in trouble without stepping on their toes. You have to force their hand." Suddenly, his fingers sealed a tight grasp around her chin, holding her away from him, giving him room to lean his head down. Her body froze up, her breath caught short and hot on his hand. She wasn't afraid, she wasn't on guard, she was just… At attention. "There's a better way, but if they're refusing to look, you have to make them look." His thumb swiped over her chin, the friction eliciting the temptation to gasp, something that immediately made her feel shameful.

He held his thumb up to her eye, showing a faint splatter of blood – her blood – dropping from the tip. It seemed the zipper had managed to cut her without her even noticing. That meant she hadn't had her aura up. That meant she had been hounding Adam, had him pinned down with better logic and sound reasoning, had him looking all pathetic and he still managed to engross her so. Worst part is that he probably didn't even intend to do that.

"This isn't healthy, Adam." Trembles in her voice betrayed the chill he unleashed upon her heart, deep, calming breaths being the only thing keeping her stable as only now did closeness of their bodies get a reaction from her. "Dwelling on all this every minute, your head doesn't have enough room to think. You're just exhausting yourself," When she couldn't take it anymore and shut her eyes tight to keep his gaze out of her sight, she could feel him smirking at the small victory. Both to enphesize her point and to get back at him, she smacked her fist against his chest, dragging out a quiet 'hey' from his lips. "and getting yourself into needless trouble. Not every part of your life has to involve the cause."

"There is nothing else, Blake." He spoke from the gut this time, no prewritten line, no repetition of Sienna alluring calls to action, just passion straight from the source. That passion, his passion, the passion that made him burn brighter than any light source, it intoxicated her and frightened her at the same time. "We're Faunus, we can't just turn that off and take a break." His hand came up to her ears, not gripping them like he did her chin, but softly smoothing over the loose bits of fur sticking out of them. He could be tender, even when everything inside him was burning. But only with her, she knew he'd never directly admit. "Until the day the White Fang has grounded this whole fuckin' system into the dirt, there is nothing but the cause."

His fingers continued to massage her ears like they were the most delicate and rare jewl in the world, even he probably wasn't sure while he appraised them in such a manner, as if this would be the last time he'd see them. Maybe he yearned to have them himself, Blake did wonder every now and then if he was unhappy with his horns, if he felt that they were another thing the universe did to mark him as a weapon, as property. Hard, sharp horns for charging and stabbing, instead of soft, cute little ears for hearing all the little details of the world. "Maybe you have family, history, unblemished memories to look back on, but I was born into it this fight. There's nothing else for me." The odd pampering stopped, but his hands didn't pull away, though there was a clear temptation to reach up to his face, to trace over that scar he desperately tried to hide behind the mask. His voice was so lost, powerful, confident, but lost. "Just the now. Just this mark."

"You can have all that, you know." She knew she was stepping over a boundary when cupped his cheek affectionately with her hand, thumb pressing gently into the tarnished skin. The two were close, there was no denying that, they were more than simple partners locked in the action, but Adam would never define their relationship. That would require him taking his eyes off his goals and he couldn't let anything get in the way of that. "Stop brooding for a moment, dedicate some time to us, to the whole wide world that exists outside of all this." She had no trouble smiling at him despite that. She knew, for the most part, how she felt. Even if he didn't want to outwardly acknowledge it, she wouldn't let it deter her from helping him, from finding the small smiles he long since lost the reason to have. "We can make memories together. Ones we'll never forget. If you'd just let us."

The sun moved an inch, the beam of light now splattered across the upper half of his face. His eyes, scared, bleeding, swelling, as exposed as he felt. She stared into them for probably the first time – she'd had glances before, but nothing so direct. She saw something in them, something faint, but so real, so raw. There was a boy in there, a boy taken from the world too young, a boy who didn't need to wear the mask, a boy she wished she could learn more about if only Adam would let her in.

Adam was a fire that burned brighter than any other light source. That fire was beautiful, captivating and being close to it made you feel warmth that couldn't be replicated by technology. It had the capacity to fuel you, empower you, comfort you; but it also had the capacity to lose control and burn down everything around it. Adam could help as much as he could hurt, but right now, in this moment so far in the past of the present Blake, Adam hadn't burned her yet.

His eyes narrowed as his head swerved to break their gaze, but his beating heart had already betrayed that he was now flushing for a different reason. Blake could swear she even heard him mutter obscenities about her 'mushy crap' and 'stupid smile'. The only part he said out loud was remarkably quiet, a volume Blake never knew he was capable of. "…Why did you come here in the first place?"

'Because I missed you.'

"I'll be honest, he's weird and all," Blake's heart leaped when Ren's voice finally snapped her out of her trance. Immediately, her mind raced with estimates for how long she'd been staring – into space, she assures herself – and how long was appropriate. Though considering the uncharacteristically unsubtle awkwardness in Ren's voice, she was pretty sure she'd passed 'appropriate' a while ago. "but that look you're giving him is starting to creep me out as well."

"What look?" Her gaze snapped to the ceiling, pretending that was where she'd always been looking. The ceiling was far more interesting than, what, Adam trying and failing to get a faulty vacuum cleaner working? Bah, the ceiling had all those little character-filled cracks your mind could make mental shapes out of. It just so happened that Adam was right in front of her, conveniently at the same time as conflicting emotions she didn't quite understand were building up. "I think you're just seeing things, Ren."

She could feel Ren's curious gaze upon her, squinting mercilessly at her weak excuses as her words easily bounced off of him. "You either want to talk about it or not, just don't try to tell me my eyes aren't working."

"Someone's snippier than usual." Indignantly, she turned her head to scowl at him, a childish part of her brain moaning that Ren was supposed to back her up or be quiet. She called him here to agree with her on how weird the Adam situation is and provide support, why did he have to pick now of all times to be more vocal? Keeping the grumbling to a minimum, Blake reached for her fresh cup of tea – incidentally, it was something Adam suggested, it was apparently one of Wither's favourite brews. Blake had to admit, the girl had good taste. In tea. Only tea. The office was still horrendous.

Though maybe it was just the way Adam brewed it. Or maybe it was the fact that it was brewed by- Damn it! Blake's brows furrowed in a restrained wince, quickly finding Ren's face catching the subtle tick and quirking a smug brow as he knew exactly how she tripped herself up.

Okay, she could admit it, Adam wasn't what she expected. And, in some morbid fashion, she enjoyed the man's company. Well, when the servant/master dynamic wasn't looming over them, when she could convince him to be more casual with her. He was familiar enough to bring familiar feelings, positive feelings. They'd been buried so deep, so long ago since she left Adam and the White Fang, that she'd honestly completely forgotten that there were any positive feelings to be found.

All she remembered before were how bad things became, how bad he became. It felt wrong – shameful really – to look back on anything related to him in a positive light. She was accustomed to there being nothing to salvage from their toxic history, nothing to regret except that she didn't get out quicker. It was easier to digest that way, no complicated parts to face, nothing to consider. He was bad. He did terrible things. She wised up to it. He hunted her down. She had to kill him. Good riddance, right? It had to be. You're not supposed to be sad about a terrible person getting what they deserve, you're supposed to be happy, you're supposed to move on.

Otherwise, you start wondering how it went wrong or how it could be different. Or how you ever thought it was right in the first place.

"Look, it's just…" She caught herself sighing, sliding down in her seat to hide her eyes behind her cup. She couldn't fully decipher her own emotions at the moment, so she wasn't running the risk of Ren analysing her face for her again. "Have you ever had that one memory where you did something real stupid? Or bad? Or… Something you look back on and can't quite remember why you did it?"

Ren tapped his chin thoughtfully. He'd like to think everyone's younger days were filled with senseless decisions, and when Nora takes your hand, logic tends to go out the window anyway. He ended up shrugging. "One or two, I suppose."

"I feel like I'm starting to remember to reason for one of 'em, that's all." She scoffed, slowly bringing her gaze back to settle on Adam again. She knew it was rude to talk about someone behind their back when they right there in the room with you, but she didn't think she'd survive the shame that'd wash over her if Adam heard any of this. "Maybe I'm just nostalgic."

Ren caught her stare and shook his head; red flags abound in his vision. Smoothly, he leaned forward, blocking her view and forcing her to meet his narrowed eyes. "Don't let that nostalgia cloud your mind. Otherwise, you'll end up doing something stupid."

She crossed her arms, a full-on scowl immediately taking over her face at the implication. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure, sure." The sarcasm was thick in his tone, though it wasn't enough to deter from the overall seriousness of his words as he gripped his chin, adding worry to the mixture of expressions. "Just remember our situation, Blake. Nothing here is right, and none of what's going through your head right now is gonna end well."

Blake couldn't help but feel hurt, his words bringing a barrage of thoughts and insulting ideas that fuelled the instinctive need to defend herself, her adrenaline levels spiking like she was in a brawl. I told them I could handle it, her thoughts argued against a mental wall to stop herself from verbalizing her more aggressive disagreements, I am handling it. Ren doesn't know what he's talking about! I'm fine, just a little flustered and surprised. I'd never do… Well, whatever he's implying I'd do.

Really, what was so wrong about her enjoying his company? It wasn't even Adam Adam! It was a completely different person who just so happened to share some resemblances, who reminded her of better days, who allowed her to remember that, once upon a time, there was a guy she fell in love with for a time. She hadn't become a shivering mess or broke down or lost her way; she was just looking at the silver lining for a change. What was so wrong with that?

"You're still making that face…"

"Ren?"

"Yeah?"

With the purist smile stretched across her face, Blake put her hangs together and pressed them to to her cheek, speaking with a song in every vowel. "Would you kindly shut up?"

There was a moment of silence in which Blake suddenly wondered if she came across as too forceful with that remark, she didn't intend to be harsh on Ren, just needle him a little for making her second guess herself. Right? Right. Right…

Ren's snort instantly dissolved any worries or tension. "Sorry, Captain Ruby gave the order for me to open up and talk more, so my hands are tied."

Blake found herself leaning against the arm of her chair, relief flooding her and allowing her to take on a more jovial tone. "I thought we were supposed to be silent allies." Truly, everyone in their group had their sacred bond of kinship, their not best friend, but parallel you go to just to have someone agree with you and make fun of the others. At least, according to Ruby. Yang and Nora were the loud and abrasive duo, Ruby and Jaune were the dorks, Weiss and Oscar were… Tired. And her and Ren were the children of the shadows, a sacred trust formed in semi-introverted isolation; and he betrayed it. Ruby would not be pleased about this.

Ren shifted in his seat, no longer seeing the need to block her view and settled back against the sofa. He raised an accusatory finger up to point directly at her. "I did too, until you hissed at me for sitting in your chair."

At first, she was ready to stand up tall and deny such a fraudulent accusation; then Blake shrunk in her seat with a new embarrassed flush to her cheeks as the memories of just thirty minutes ago kicked in. "I did not hiss." She said quietly and with any confidence. Her hands instinctively ran her fingers over the rich leather, the perfectly fitting shape, the flexible cushions and added "And it is the most comfortable chair I've ever sat in. It's like the one part of this office that doesn't look oppressive, I swear."

Judging from Ren's disturbed expression, Blake practically groping her seat looked as uncomfortable as it did in her head when she realized what she was doing. "Good to know that while we've all be on the street investigating, you've been lounging about in luxury".

She shook her head "Hey, I've been doing my fair share, don't you worry." Pulling her scroll off the desk behind her, she dropped it down on the coffee table, sliding it to Ren where he got a clearer view of the sprawling list of building names. "Adam mentioned that Whitley was taking a keen interest in the SDC's recent property purchases just before he was taken, so I've been pouring through some old records that roughly line up with the date." Her fingers glided across the screen, scrolling down the list from an upside down position before bringing it to a sudden halt. One name in big bold letters immediately caught Ren's eye. "Name look familiar to you?"

"Sanctuary." He sighed, unsure on how to feel about the discovery. "What would a dusty company want with a school building?"

"Nothing good." Blake grumbled, her frustrated eyes now boring down into the contents of her teacup. Once again, she had to remind herself of what the SDC does. Once again, she had to remind herself she was apart of it now. Once again, she wanted to vomit. "No business is conducted there, nobody connected to the SDC is invested in the school, the school isn't even for Huntsman so you can't argue that it's part of some dust sale's pitch."

Ren picked up the scroll, holding it closer to his face as he scrolled for the surrounding properties on the list. Nothing there quite caught his attention like the school. Though he was surprised by how few of the listed properties were owned completely by the SDC, most of anything they owned was co-owned by another company. "I take it you're thinking it's a site to conduct off-the-books activity." He rubbed his chin, squinting in thought. It was a solid theory, there wasn't much other reason to buy the school. But then again, why a school? "Wouldn't they just find a warehouse for that? A school that's still active in the day doesn't strike me as the best business spot."

"There's not much available land as far as I can tell." Blake slipped out of her seat, leaning over Ren to point to the same detail he just noticed. "Most of the buildings in Respite are co-owned by the Atlas Government or are public SDC facilities, the school was probably one of the few sites that were both available and convenient for… Whatever the SDC uses it for."

It technically made sense. It could work as an explanation "I guess I can buy that." So why did his voice sound so doubtful?

Her head tilted, giving her a good angle to hit him with a cocked eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"No offense to you." He gripped the bridge of his nose, rubbing away the sudden drowsiness that overtook him, as if he hadn't already had a good few hours of sleep before coming over here. "I guess sometimes it feels like nothing in this place really makes any sense, but I don't know if that's just because we don't remember any of it or…"

"Or what?"

Or what? Nothing. His mind went completely blank. There was something, an answer, a theory, a tangible conclusion he was really confident in within the confines of his mind; and it just vanished. "Nothing, nothing. It was a stupid thought."

"It's all still overwhelming, isn't it?" She lightly squeezed his shoulder, letting him feel the slight wheeze hiding in her strained lungs.

"Yeah, that must be it." He could accept that. It was just overwhelming; it was such an easy answer. But if he just kept thinking about it, maybe-

His thoughts didn't have a chance to mature past infancy as the shriek of his scroll's alarm threatened to shred his eardrums. He'd complain about the noise, but then he remember why the alarm was ringing. "Son of a- Is it that time already?" Narrowed eyes jumped over the screen, desperately singling out the digital clock. The instant his eyes met the time Ren sprung to his feet like a man facing electrocution. "Blake, don't do anything we wouldn't do and keep looking, I gotta go!"

Blake was taken aback by the sudden outburst from a man known mostly for his stoicism, desperately blinking away her shock to barely form an answer. "Wait, where are you going?"

"I've got a date, remember?" He called back, narrowly avoiding Adam as he rushed into the elevator. "And I wouldn't miss this one for the world."

Ruby found that service was slow in the mornings. People wearily trickled into the shop at the pace of turtles, fingers brushing over price tags with no actual idea or desire of what they'll purchase, just a routine of stopping off before the day starts. It was a time of peace, a convenient lull in activity that let Ruby wake herself up before the lunch hour hit and the customers picked up the pace. Even better, Ruby was looking at an early day as soon as the latest products reached them. She was only on stocking duty today, and, not to pat herself on the back, she had gotten stocking the shelves down to an art form. She had not gotten enough sleep lately and she was ready to keel over.

In the meantime, she sat on the counter, flipping through their inventory sheet while occasionally peering over the rim of the clipboard to follow the direction of Nora's finger. The current victim was a lanky looking fellow comparing two identical looking fruits in his hands. Ruby shrugged "I just don't see it."

"Come on, look at that manbun!" Nora scoffed, pushing her wheelchair back as if her vigorous gesturing would be more powerful if she were closer. "He totally sells crystals that 'heal your spirit' out of a van or something."

With peace came stability, but there also came boredom. So much boredom that the two technical red-heads of a different shade had taken to a game of guessing the occupation of their customers; their conclusions stemming completely from good-natured shameless surface level judgments. "He just looks more like a music store dude to me." Ruby continued, pursing her lips as she thought back to the last time she'd browsed a music store. It had been a harrowing experience, the memory making her lip twist into a frown, because apparently her love for Strawberry Brigaders was unacceptable to the rest of the world. "You know, the one who'll loudly groan if you so much as glance at something that isn't a vintage record."

Nora squinted at the man, stroking her chin as the world's most complicated equation unfolded before her eyes. "With that outfit?" Her head swerved in a sharp arc, a harsh slap to her knee giving the movement an impactful thump. "No way, he's too clean!"

Both girls found themselves jumping out of their seats when the Old Man, with speed that made Ruby in particular jealous, seemed to materialize between them, with not a creak of his weary bones to alert them to his approach. "I'd appreciate you being at least a little quieter when you're shamelessly insulting our customers…"

"We weren't being that loud, Gram-" Up close, Ruby got a good, deep look at the mortifying scowl before her, one that had probably been mastered over many years of dealing with Nora. Under it's powerful gaze, all she could do was swallow the urge to jump once more and make an attempt at a fake laugh. "W-we'll keep it down, yeah?"

Satisfied with her answer, his scowl dissolved into his regular grumbling frown. His hand reached out, swatting Ruby harshly on the shoulder – but still taking care to avoid targeting her leg – and forcing her off the counter. "Now, stop lounging around, our latest shipment's coming in and you don't have much time to stock it."

Landing on her good leg, she transitioned into a sharp pivot, sinking against the counter with a small pout. "I don't take that long, do I?"

"No, but I can't have the front counter unmanned for too long."

His back was already turned by the time Ruby processed his words. She suddenly gasped, palms slamming down on the counter surface to push her up and over it. He joints were already crying at the prospect. "Wait, I thought I was just stocking shelves today?!" Already she could picture the view of her bed slowly being yanked out of reach, so many hours of sleep, taken from her in a flash.

She didn't need to wait to identify the responsible party as Nora's loud, suspicious, criminal giggling immediately caught her attention. Ruby's eyes fell upon her cheery cohort, spotting Nora wheel behind the counter to hang up her work apron. Traitor! You set me up! "By the way, thanks for covering my shift so I can go on my date, Rubes. You're a real hero!"

Ruby's thousand-yard scowl boring into the back of Nora's head went unheeded as she passed. "I did not agree to this."

No, instead Nora was focused on pointing towards the front door, where a familiar shape rushed into view. Then proceeded to skid right past the doors because he realized far too late that he overshot his destination. "Oh look, there's Ren now." Ruby was pretty sure she heard the distant bang of her their resident ninja slamming face first into a lamp post.

The door opened, inviting inside a bell's soft hum and a short gasp of breath. The sounds played out long before Ren's body, slightly hunched over with sweat tugging on his ears, made it through. He tried his best to downplay how he'd obviously sprinted down here, combing back his hair and pin it down in place while his shoulders turned to obscure the prominent sweat stains sinking through his clothes.

His eyes met Nora's, a blush creeping over his cheeks and any words easily dissolving on his tongue when her giggle reached his ears. It took him a good few seconds to think of an appropriate line, deciding on shooting the two girls an aloof gaze, nod with the stiffness of a statue and grunt out a respectful "…Ladies."

Ruby joined Nora in laughing, resting one elbow on the counter and pressing the back of her free hand against her forehead in a mock-fainting gesture. "So smooth."

Ren crossed locked his arms behind his back, retaining some illusion of stability as his eyes focused on Ruby. "If Jaune had said that, you'd be on the ground right now."

True to her name, Ruby Rose's rose red blush far outshined Ren's as she looked away, hearing Nora's laughter only rise. "H-Hey, what's that got to do with anything!? Just go on your stupid date already. You're crowding my productive and rewarding single life."

"Don't get too jealous, Rubes." Nora's sing song tone as she crossed the store to reach Ren did nothing to deter Ruby's pout. "We're just going for a nice, calming tour of the city."

Oh, but with Nora by his side, Ren was feeling particularly merciless today. "And maybe we'll stop off for some ice cream…" He leaned against Nora's wheelchair, leering down at the now drooling Ruby. "I hear there's a good shop a few blocks over, tops their Sundays with the juiciest of strawberries."

Ruby's lips trembled as if she were about to burst into tear. "Why must you do this to me?"

Ren rolled his eyes "We'll make sure to buy something extra for you."

She crossed her arms and huffed. "You better."

"Shall we go?" Ren, now recovering from his exasperated entrance, made a swooping gesture as he held the door open with the grace of an old-timey gentleman.

"I hope you can keep up, Renny." Nora waved one last goodbye to Ruby before passing through the door, a mischievous glint never leaving her eyes. "I'll have you know I'm quite the terror of the sidewalk on these wheels."

Ren couldn't hide the beaming smile that overtook him, the light seemingly hitting her at the perfect angle for just that moment. "I expect no less." The rest of the world might as well have no existed as they continued down the street, not the bustling crowd, not the tightly packed buildings, not the fake foliage that reached their feet; there was only him and here, side-by-side.

For Ren, he was in an art gallery and one painting had dominated his attention. A vibrant paint, shining with colour, oozing energy and radiating warmth despite being restricted to it's canvas. The other observers, the casual onlookers who couldn't find one modicum of passion or meaning in the art, just the fact that it was pretty, became ghosts, passing through him as he constantly readjusted his position to find the best angle to appreciate the piece.

But just like an art display, Ren felt himself restricted to stand behind the boundary. He could look, he could imagine, he could get immersed, but he couldn't allow himself to reach out and touch. The texture, the details, the true definition you could only get up close must remain a mystery to him, lest his grubby fingers or reckless emotion end up staining the painting. Or, perhaps, lest he find himself so captivated he could never again look away.

"You're so stiff." Her voice was so distant in his head despite her only being a few paces in front of him, his brain more focused on the tremor of panic striking his heart when he realised she was looking back at him instead of where she was going. "It's like you're scared of me or something. I don't judge east, I swear!"

"It's not you I'm scared of." Ren quickened his pace slightly, just enough to put him beside her, to let his hand rest on the back of her chair and gently steer her clear of other people. "Or… Well… I'm scared of what I'll do in front of you." He tried to keep his lips locked tight, bury these emotions behind a simple 'I'm fine, it's nothing', but he couldn't; not when she was looking up at him like that. "I'm a cautious person. I've seen how quickly things can go wrong and how things can be taken before you even have the time to blink." His village, his father, it all came back to the forefront of his mind, as fresh as the day it became a memory. "There's a lot of things that are important to me, and I'm afraid if I take my eyes off them – for even a second – then I screw it all up and, well…" His free hand massages the growing bruise from his brief encounter with the lamp post. "Slam into a wall."

"Heavy." Nora spoke with a peculiar tone, half-way between sympathy and bemusement, as if something sad had happened in front of her, but still found it impressive that it occurred in the first place. After a moment of chewing on her bottom lip, Nora pressed her hand firmly on top of Ren's, returning to her grin, albeit a more low-key and softer smile. "My Uncle gets like that sometimes. When my Dad was still with us, he'd say you two are looking at it all wrong." In complete contradiction to her sunny disposition, her skin was cold to touch, so much that Ren couldn't help but jump at the sudden contact. The fears clawed at him, drawing sweat from his brows and bitterness from his tongue. She was wheelchair-bound, at his mercy, with one wrong move on this lively street of accidents waiting to happen; he could ruin it all. And yet, he couldn't find the power to pull himself away from her. His hand, his attention, his warmth, she held it all firmly.

Suddenly, her wheelchair came to a halt, the handle jabbing right into an unsuspecting Ren's hip. He didn't have time to question it before the screech of a car humiliating the speed limit as it tore through the street assaulted his ears. A car that he only noticed at the last second came narrowly close to running down Nora if she had taken another pace forward. In the simulation, his power was to blind danger to his presence. And now he was surrounded by danger, and yet it was he who was blind to it all.

His jaw hung open, drowning his bitter tastebuds with fresh panic and shame. Fearfully, he turned his gaze down to Nora, expecting to see her trembling in her seat as she processed her close brush with death. "See, if you only focus on one piece of the puzzle, you'll miss the bigger picture. And without the bigger picture, you'll have no idea what you're even looking for." No. No, of course she was still smiling, that signature troublemaking smile that pulled him into so much mischief in his childhood.

Ren fell limp against the wheelchair, doubling over to pour his shivering panic into deep bouts of gasping breath. He was worried he'd hurt her when she was ready to do just that tenfold at the drop a hat. "You're determined to give me a heart attack one of these days, I swear."

"What can I say? I like to keep my man's blood pumping." She wheeled on like nothing had happened, and he scrambled to keep pace with her, eyes now wide and alert to scan the path ahead. "The date's barely started and we already almost got killed, that's a sign of a good day ahead if I'd ever seen one."

As the day drew on, the street opened up more. The crowds dispersed, roads emptied, and life retreated. Soon enough, it felt like the makings of a ghost town were creeping upon them. Every few buildings Ren would find himself staring at another 'For Sale' sign hanging from a shop, covering up a broken window or positioned above shattered product left in pieces in front of the entrance. More importantly, he saw more and more buildings with a freshly made SDC logo emblazed upon them, saw more building materials surrounding half-demolished buildings.

"People all over are being forced to close up shop." Nora spoke up, following Ren's gaze, her eyes finally faltering to the gloomy atmosphere. "Used to be not long ago I could most of my life without seeing the SDC logo, now it's everywhere. It's like those cursed symbols they talk about in fairy tales, the ones that mark where all the bad stuff is."

"I had no idea they'd spread so far." Truly, it gave Ren pause. Not because the idea of a corporation shutting down a bunch of small businesses was unheard of, but because this didn't seem to match up at all with what Blake found about the SDC's situation. They were struggling for properties in their name, weren't they? Were Blake's files outdated? The SDC couldn't be this deeply rooted, yet also struggling, could they?

"It's not a complete takeover, admittedly." Nora interrupts his thoughts, as if replying to the questions of his mind. "But it might as well be. Those Schnees won't be satisfied until they've taken everything." She sighed, pulling herself close to Ren and resting her head against his arm, her face flinching in emotional pain. "Honestly, I'm starting to get scared that my Uncle's gonna be in the same situation sometime soon."

Nora was hurting, Nora was scared, Nora needed him; and as easily as they came his thoughts were swept aside for her. He turned into her half-hearted embrace, cradling her chin in his arm as he curved his elbow press his palm against her cheek. Navigating such situations weren't his strong suit, but he needed a solution and fast. The obvious course of action was to dispense some sympathetic words and assure her it would all be okay, but he didn't think he could be that convincing, and he didn't think Nora would accept those words right now. Maybe just embrace her until the pain subsides? No, that would do no good while they were still standing in the middle of this dreary street. Maybe-

Maybe it was time to stop thinking. Stop tripping himself up on the trivial details. Perhaps, it was his turn to get Nora's blood pumping.

Throwing caution to the wind before logic and nerves could threaten to stop him, Ren grabbed firm hold of the wheelchair's handles, pushed off his feet and launched both him and Nora into a full-on sprint. There was no destination in mind, just the manic energy of a desperate man as Ren zipped down the street at full throttle, thrusting forward a woman who was still trying to figure out she was moving in the first place.

"R-Ren, what are you doing?" Nora cried, gripping onto the chair's arms for dear life.

"What, you don't like a bit of spontaneity from your dates?" Ren tried his best to mimic Nora's unrestrained laugher, but for all his effort such boisterous laughter was foreign to him, the best he could manage was a scratchy cackle that was undercut by a sharp intake of breath.

While at first Nora seemed apprehensive about the sudden speed boost that had her nearly running three people over if not for Ren's expert agility, once the period of shock at the stoic Ren's sudden outburst of 'fun' had passed, Nora found herself grinning from ear to ear, leaning back in her seat and bellowing out a joyful squeal like she was on a roller coaster ride.

"Renny!" She called, still gripping the seat like her life depended on it, but smiling. "You're gonna get us in trouble!"

Ren took a sudden sharp turn down an alleyway, smoothly manuvering the wheelchair through the tight confines between the bins. "I could use a little trouble right now!" He called back, the alleyway only registering for a second before they were back on the streets, busting out into a gathering of pigeons and disturbing the populace.

For the next ten minutes the streets of Respite was at the mercy of this devastating duo, a blur of ginger and emerald tearing past people, shooting across roads and jumping over bridges. They could cause trouble, they could attract the attention of the police, hell, they could slam into a wall and probably make Ren Nora's paraplegic buddy; but Nora was happy again and that meant nothing else needed to matter.

They only came to a stop, eventually, when Ren felt the burning of his lungs telling him he was on his last breath. He slowed to a halt by another lamp post, carful to not make any sudden stops that would catapult Nora out of her seat. He sunk into her chair once more, this time wrapping her arms around her shoulders and using her as support as his screaming lungs spluttered out the bare minimum of air for him.

"I recognise this street." Nora said, prompting Ren to level his gaze at their surroundings. However, no matter how hard he observed, it looked exactly the same as most other streets in this city, only this street only look restless rather than empty. "This is my street." She raised her hand, pointing to a small house at the end of an elevated road that looked over the rest of the buildings. "That's my… That was my dad's house."

"Your dad?"

Ren froze, his mind already in deep debate about whether or not to ask, thankfully Nora answered for him. "He's away on business right now." She shook her head. "I really wish he was here right now. Nothing's the same without him."

"I get it." He crouched down next to her, putting their heads on the same level so he could look into her eyes dead on. Terrible omens piled up in the back of his mind, but her eyes, brimming with hope and a need for affection, drove those omens away. "But it's like your Dad said, you can't just focus on one piece of the puzzle, even a missing piece; you have to allow yourself to look at the whole picture."

"Well, the pieces of the picture I have so far are looking good." Nora managed a simple smile. "I didn't mean for this date the become such a… Downer. Heh."

"Nonsense," he cupped her cheek once more, her gaze pulling him in, closer, closer, resting his forehead against hers. "all you've done is inspire me to be less of a downer."

Another giggle that reminded him the wheezing lungs were worth it. "Thank you, Ren."

"No, thank you Nora."

I missed you.