The party celebrating the return of Team RWBY and Jaune was in full swing. Oscar Pine watched from a distance, content to watch the proceedings. In the months since he'd left the farm, he'd seen more than his share of tears, but never this many happy tears. It was heartening.

To others, it might have seemed a peculiar time for a party at a time like this, with the possible end of the world bearing down upon them. Oscar knew better. Miracles were rare enough that it was worth celebrating them when they happened. He knew that Oz, even with his different perspective on both miracles and time, agreed with him.

Whether that was because Oscar and Oz were learning to accommodate each other better, or because they were adapting to each other's preferences, or whether the ever-approaching merger was driving their preferences towards each other... Oscar would rather not try to parse. It felt better to skip the whys and accept things as they were.

And "as they were" was joyful. People were being wrapped up in embraces, being told how much they'd been missed, being screamed at to "never scare me like this again", and so on. For all the many forms, though, Oscar knew all the reactions were from love. That made all of them good.

A good that other people had much more of a stake in than he did.

Don't sell yourself short, Oscar, Oz thought at him. You care about their return too, and not just from a saving-the-world perspective.

Even if that was true, and Oscar was totally not admitting that it was, he wouldn't have known what to do with himself in these situations. Parties of any kind were rare out in the country; parties like this were unimaginable. No. Best to let the people with the strongest bonds build up and reinforce those bonds, and let the socially awkward soak in the secondhand version of that.

Which is why it was more than surprising to Oscar when Ruby Rose broke free of the pack and approached him.

"Parties, am I right?" said Ruby.

"You're... right?" said Oscar.

Ruby gave him a sheepish smile. "Actually, I had something I wanted to talk to you about."

"OK," said a startled Oscar. "I'm all ears."

"A little more privately," said Ruby meaningfully.

Oscar broke out in all-over sweat. "Privately?" he squeaked.

"Er, that came out kinda wrong, I suppose," said Ruby with an expression close to how Oscar felt. "I just thought it'd be easier to hear if we were away from all the ruckus."

"Oh," said Oscar, marginally more relaxed. "That's fine, then."

Ruby led the way out of the Shade Academy ballroom and into one of the long hallways leading away. Oscar was grateful for how much cooler and quieter it was there. She leaned against the wall, seeming to gather her thoughts. Well, Oscar could wait for her. If there was a positive trait he was picking up from Oz, it was patience.

"By the way," said Ruby, "is there any way you can, like, close Oz off for a bit? Have him look somewhere else, maybe? This is… kinda personal."

The words made Oscar infinitely more nervous. He cleared his throat. "Uh, I can't, not really, but… he promises to mind his manners."

"Oh. Uh, good enough, I guess." She wiggled in place against the wall another moment, then took a deep breath. "So, the Ever After was pretty crazy."

"It sure sounded like it," said Oscar. And hadn't it been marvelous to hear of such a thing, so wildly unexpected even Oz could not have dreamed of it.

For as many experiences as Oz the Evergreen had picked up over his lifetimes walking the face of Remnant, he'd only ever, well, walked the face of Remnant. He'd never been to or even imagined worlds beyond. Oh, sure, the gods must have gone somewhere when they left the world they'd created; but that didn't give any clues about what those grand cosmos were like. Who could have guessed there was anything like the Ever After out there?

Even Oz, having written most of Remnant's fairy tales and appreciating their enormous power, had only ever thought of "The Girl Who Fell Through the World" as a product of grand imagination. A poignant, touching product of imagination, but still.

It looked they'd be making another entry on the seemingly endless ledger of Oz's mistakes—but this one, Oscar felt, was one the ancient was happy to make.

"We learned a lot while we were there," said Ruby. "Some of it was stuff the Ever After was trying to teach us… but not all of it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," said Ruby, her voice slowing, "you know Neo fell with us, yeah?"

Oscar's fingers tightened on Oz's cane. "You mentioned that."

"She kept coming after me even after we fell. She didn't stop just because we were in another world."

"Persistence is a virtue, right?" said Oscar.

It was a limp joke, but Ruby honored it with a half-smile all the same. "The thing with Neo is, you know how she can appear as other people?"

"How could I forget?" said Oscar, wholly truthfully. He remembered only too well how Neo had attacked him to seize the lamp, beating him to a pulp before slipping through JNOR's combined clutches with a mix of guile, elaborate illusions, and poorly-timed and worse-intentioned law enforcement intervention.

"And sometimes she'll look like someone you know just to mess with your head?"

He absolutely did. She'd changed to look like Nora, causing Ren to freeze at a critical moment—

Wait. No, no way that's where this was going. Right?

"Well," said Ruby, scuffing up the ground with the toe of her boot and pointedly not looking at him, "when she was coming after me, she appeared as… you."

Oscar's breath caught in his throat. "M-me?"

"Um. Twice, actually."

So that's exactly where this was going.

"And it really, really messed with me when she did that," said Ruby, in case Oscar had missed the point.

"Are you…" Oscar tried, but the words jammed in his mouth. He coughed, suddenly unable to look at Ruby. "Are you saying… you think of me the way Ren thinks of Nora?"

"Well, uh, not… really? Maybe? I don't think so… but I could?"

"Oh," said Oscar as his insides filled with panic, "that clears it all up, then."

"I'm trying, okay?" she said with a sort-of laugh. Oscar smiled in spite of himself. "Look, I don't think of you… like that… right now. But I sure didn't feel the same way when she appeared as you as when she appeared as, like, Lionheart."

"She appeared as Lionheart?" said Oscar. "Yuck."

"I know, right?" She looked up at him for the first time in a while, and for some reason, her eyes felt like they were pinning Oscar in place, like a bug on a display board. "All I'm saying is, it felt way worse when she pretended to be you. I didn't expect that, but it totally happened. Heh, it'd be pretty funny if a bad guy figured stuff out about us before we did, wouldn't it?"

Oscar couldn't see the humor anywhere. With his nerves, he was gripping his cane so tightly he was a threat to crush the handle.

Ruby took a deep breath. "So I had to think about what that meant, and what I was gonna do about it. And, after some careful thought…"

Every part of Oscar tensed all at once. This was a critical moment; he could only wait for her choice.

"…I decided I really don't have the time or energy for a relationship right now."

Oscar whimpered. "That's not a yes or a no!"

"It's a 'no' for now," Ruby said. "Like, a kind of a 'no'. The kind of 'no' that could become a 'yes' real quick if it came right down to it."

That was as terrifying as it was thrilling. And it was a lot less of a 'no' than the word demanded. When did 'no' get degrees? Who let there be shades of 'no'?

Probably Oz.

Leave me out of this.

"I'll make you a promise, though," said Ruby. "If I do start thinking of you that way, I won't drag it out over months of pining and maybes like certain people did."

(Back in the ballroom, for absolutely no reason at all, Yang sneezed.)

Oscar smiled. "Is it weird if I think that's kinda reassuring?"

"That was the idea," said Ruby gamely. "Maybe one day, when we've won and I can breathe for a minute and you've got the old guy outta your head…"

Oscar's heart sank. Of course, Oz was messing everything up. Sorry.

"…or maybe if we just catch a moment when things aren't crazy…"

Oscar got emotional whiplash. This wasn't fair at all! She was doing all the talking and all he could do was spin like a weathervane with every shift of her winds.

"…then we'll just see, won't we?" she said with a gleam in her eye which Oscar found both frightening and exciting.

But the mention of Oz dragged on Oscar like an anchor. "And if it doesn't work like that?" he asked, his voice weak. "If I… we… merge, first?"

"Well," said Ruby, and the steel in her voice pulled Oscar's eyes up to meet hers, "then I guess I'll have to get to know the new you. But I'm not gonna rule out anything at this point, you know?"

Oscar lost control of his jaw muscles.

"You remember Jinn's vision. Oz's old lives had spouses too, remember? There were people who loved who he was at those different times. And 'who he was' changes, too. I was thinking about that."

"I can't imagine when you had time to think about all these things!" said Oscar.

Ruby got the sheepish look of someone who's said far more than they meant to. "The point is! Like… the Tree. You go in, and maybe you come out as someone else, or something else. And whatever that is, it's something new."

"I'm just gonna have to take your word for it," said Oscar.

"Well," said Ruby, "even if you and Oz do merge, it won't be you on the other side, but it also won't be Oz. It'll be some new person. And I'm not gonna shoot that person down before I even meet them."

The last futilely firing neurons in Oscar's brain called it a day.

With every moment of silence, a little more of Ruby's self-assurance fell away, until she looked fifteen and terrified, arms bashfully behind her back, head dipped as if to shield it. "If… that's okay?" she said timidly.

You really ought to say something. Preferably something nice.

Oscar swallowed hard. "I've met a lot of people since leaving the farm, Ruby Rose, but none of them are like you."

Ruby—who'd defied world leaders and talked back to immortal witches, who'd faced off unflinchingly against armies and titan-class grimm alike—quailed in uncertainty. "Is… that a good thing?"

"It's the very best thing," Oscar said, and if he wasn't articulate enough to pick good words or the right words or the fanciest words, he could at least say them with all the feeling he could muster.

"…oh." It took several seconds for his words to register, but when they did, Oscar was treated to of the world's great treasures: the delayed-action blush. "Ohhhh."

She was still squirming and bashful, but not from fear any more. Oscar smiled as something fluttered in his chest.

Ruby bit her lip, shot him a fleeting look… and pointed back towards the ballroom. "We should get back before we're missed."

Before she was missed—Oscar was fairly certain he could have wandered off with no one the wiser, whereas Ruby was Ruby—but that wasn't the point. "Sure," he said, the tension finally leaving him.

"Otherwise Yang'll make up some crazy story about why we snuck off," she said with an affectionate rolling of eyes. "Probably think we were off making out or something."

"Well…" said Oscar, boldness seizing hold of him—for a moment; he froze, before Oz whispered, Go on. "…do you think we might as well?"

Ruby tripped over her own boots. While standing still. Somehow. "What?!"

Oscar shrugged in what he meant as nonchalance and might have come across as cluelessness. "If, uh, if she thinks we're kissing anyway… well, we could kiss, and it wouldn't be any different… right?"

Ruby gaped for a bit before recovering with a smile. "Ooh, nice. Smooth move, farm boy!"

"Thanks," said Oscar, only for panic to descend upon him once more. He might have been bluffing—what was he supposed to do if she said 'yes'?

She winked. "Maybe next time."

And she burst away from him in a cloud of petals.

Oscar had always thought of the phrase "parting is such sweet sorrow" as so much steaming fertilizer, but he thought he was starting to appreciate it. He was so glad that interaction was over… but he missed it, too.

She really is remarkable.

"You said you'd mind your manners."

I'm being polite. You're thinking much less polite things than I am.

"Well, I am glad to see that I'm not the only one who has no idea what to do with Ruby Rose."

You'll figure it out.

Oscar smiled. "Thanks."

And he followed her back into the ballroom.