Chapter 3

"Oh hey Bellabooty."

"I really wish you could find a different nickname for me than that."

"Anyways." Yang dismisses the request, making Blake dramatically roll her eyes. "What's got you out and about so late? It's gotta be like what, one or two in the morning?"

"I was studying at the library." Blake says and starts to make herself a tea.

"By yourself?"

"No. I was with Weiss."

"You seem to be spending a lot of time with her this semester."

"She is just a good friend and a really good person to study with."

"Oh yeah? Does she tickle your brain?" Yang wiggles her eyebrows, smirking.

"Weiss and I are just friends." Blake makes sure to look away from Yang as she speaks. Knowing that the other girl will do everything in her power to see if there is a different truth for Blake to confess.

"And?" Yang asks, expectantly.

"And nothing. We sit together in class, we study together, sometimes we go have coffee or something but that's it." Blake clears her throat before taking the final sip of her tea before Yang casually slides down to take a seat beside her at the table.

"Well I mean, why not? It's obvious that you got some feelings about it. Or else you wouldn't be trying so hard to avoid me and my questions right now."

"Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"I live here?"

"Maybe you should go to sleep since we have class tomorrow."

"I don't have class til eleven, so I'm fine." Yang leans back and props her feet up on the table, which Blake swats back down.

"This isn't a brothel, keep your feet off the table. We eat off of there."

"Sounds like someone is a little grouchy." She yells after Blake, who has wandered off towards her room. "Have a good night sleep, grouch!"

Once she makes it to her room, she flops down lifelessly on her bed.

She did truly enjoy all of the time she was spending with Weiss. But she also wasn't willing to jeopardize her friendship over a crush. Especially when there weren't exactly any signs that Weiss had any interest outside of the obvious ones, which was studying.

Weiss was someone that was just different from anyone else Blake had ever met. She was always able to meet her intellectually and hold conversations that were thoughtful and fulfilling.

She was grateful, and kind. She didn't let things hold her back and she always pushed forward through any form of adversity she faced. Blake admired her greatly.

Her mind was still pondering too many things, all centering around Weiss Schnee, as she continued to get ready for bed.

By the time she is finally in bed and ready to sleep, she can't help but wonder if tonight would be another night spent dreaming dreams about the white haired girl that sat beside her in vertebrate zoology.

—

"I will be coming by your lab stations to make sure you have all of your required tools and materials prior to you beginning the dissection. So you must wait for me to give you the all clear."

Their professor had started at the front of the lab room and was slowly making his way towards the back row of tables, where Weiss and Blake found themselves.

"Is everything set up okay? We do have everything you need, right?" Weiss asks, slightly frantic.

"Weiss, it's okay. We have everything we need. I have your dissection kit, as well as mine. We have our safety glasses on. Your hair is up and out of the way. I'm not sure if you are going to need to put the rubber gloves on, but we can ask when he gets to us." She sees Weiss open her mouth to keep asking questions. "Before you ask, yes, I have my gloves on already. And my hands are nice and sweaty."

Weiss rolls her eyes and smirks as they await their checkoff from their professor.

"How's it going ladies? Weiss, did you receive the email with the audio walkthrough for today?"

"Yes sir, I did. I have it ready." She holds up her recorder, with the headphones connected, only one earpiece is in her ear, so that she can relay the information to Blake.

"Alright." He nods. "And Miss Belladonna? Everything we need to get started?"

"I believe so."

"Yes, yes. Kit looks good and clean. Gloves on." He looks over at Weiss. "Weiss, I suppose you don't need to use the gloves, but we do have some here for you, just in case you change your mind. Both of you have the safety glasses on. Alright. Everything looks good. You ladies can begin. And let me know if you have questions or if there is anything you need."

"Okay, ready?" She looks over at Weiss, who nods in confirmation and presses play on her recorder.

"It says there is a sheet we have to fill out, identifying structures, with a picture. Do we have that?"

"Yes. I have it here. And I will fill it out as we go.

"Okay. It says the first step is to identify the structures within the mouth. The frog has two sets of teeth."

They continue through the external anatomy of the frog and Blake is ready to get started with the internal stuff as Weiss listens to something on her headset, making sure they are at the right place and haven't missed any steps.

"The first step is to place the frog in the pan."

"Ventral side up?" Blake asks, looking over at Weiss out of the corner of her eye.

"What? Yes. Ventral side up." Blake looks over and sees Weiss making a flipping motion with her hands so she can remember which way that is. "You will want to pin the frog to the pan by its hands and feet, so it doesn't move while you cut."

"Okay. Done."

"Use the scissors to cut upward along the midline and lift the abdominal muscles away from the body, and then cut transversely, at the arms and legs. Then- ew."

"What?"

"It says to lift the flaps of the body wall and pin them back, and to the tray." Weiss snarls her lip upwards in disgust and Blake can't help but laugh.

It takes Blake a few minutes. And she makes sure to take her time so that she doesn't mess up or cut too deeply. Better to have to cut a few times than to cut once and do damage to their frog.

"It smells bad."

"It's dead, Weiss. I don't think it's supposed to smell good."

"What does it look like?"

"Um it's really pale, dead and grey." She hears Weiss scoff, so she tries to do a little better as she describes what she sees. "I am getting through the muscles, which are kind of light pink in color. But the fibers are white looking."

"Let me know once you get a little further, through the muscle."

"Okay." She keeps cutting until the muscle is pulled away. "Done with that. There are some white fibers that are all over stuff."

"That is the…" Weiss pauses, listening to whatever is playing in her headphones. "The peritoneum. It says to pick it away so you can properly visualize the organs."

"Does it say what tool to use?"

"No. Just pick it."

"It's not a booger. I can't just pick it. It looks like a spider web and its stuck to everything."

"Use the scissors or the scalpel I guess?"

"Should we ask what to use?" Blake looks torwards the front of the room, if anything, trying to see what other groups are doing before having to ask the teacher for help.

"Just use your best judgement I guess." Weiss shrugs, breathing out forcefully.

Blake grabs a pair of tweezers from her kit and begins to pull the membrane pieces away. After a few minutes, she grabs at the final piece, it's stuck to the liver, and it won't come off. So she pushes down on the liver with her finger as she pulls with the tweezers using her other hand. The peritoneum comes off, but so does a lobe of the frog's liver.

"Uh oh."

"Uh oh? What happened?"

"I think a piece of the liver was stuck to the membrane, when I pulled it, it detached from the rest."

"You pulled out the liver?!" Weiss' voice is slightly raised. Blake can tell she is stressed.

"No, not the whole thing."

"What do you mean, not the whole thing?"

"Well, the other two lobes are still in there and look fine."

"You have to be more careful. We don't have multiple opportunities to do this."

Blake can sense the frustration rolling off of Weiss. She knows it must be difficult to sit by idly, giving instructions while being unable to participate. Not to mention she was completely at Blake's mercy for every lab. Blake's grade would be Weiss' grade, and vice versa.

As luck would have it, the professor just happened to be wandering by. Blake sighs in defeat, getting ready to get reprimanded for a second time.

"What do we have here?" He leans over the tray, peering into the frog's body.

Blake hears Weiss huff out a sound of discontent, so she swallows her pride and confesses.

"I was trying to peel away the peritoneum and it was adhered to the left anterior lobe of the liver and part of it separated with it when I pulled it off."

"Oh." He dismisses their concern. "That happens on occasion. I wouldn't worry too much about it. As long as you can identify where the lobe would be, then no harm done, metaphorically speaking. Keep up the good work, you two." He chuckles to himself as he turns and wanders on to the next table.

She hears a sigh of relief from the girl beside her, but she still feels guilty, and obviously responsible.

"I'm sorry, Weiss. I will be more careful. And not pull as hard on stuff. I won't do it again, I promise."

"It's-" Weiss hangs her head. "It's not your fault. I was upset, without reason. I am just frustrated because I can't do anything to help except relay instructions. I am useless."

"You aren't useless. Don't ever say that. You've double checked my work better than any other lab partner I've ever had. Most of them just sat there while I did everything by myself. And this isn't the first time I've dissected a frog, so I should've known better."

"I just wish I could do more."

Blake looks up, and looks over all the tools on their desk. And she gets an idea. It was going to end up taking a long time, but if it helped, then she was willing to ask for permission.

"I'll be right back. Stay here."

Weiss hears Blake's chair slide back across the floor and the sound of her footsteps fading lightly towards the front of the room.

She sits there in silence, the smell of formaldehyde permeating the air around her. Eventually she hears the scuffing of Blake's steps returning. Quickly she does her best to fight back the tears that have been threatening the corners of her eyes for the last few minutes.

"You don't have any other classes this afternoon, right?" Blake asks softly as she sits back down in her chair.

"No. On Tuesday I only have this lab."

"Okay. So let's do the lab, together." Blake reaches out and grabs the second pair of gloves that have been sitting unused on Weiss' half of the table. "May I hold onto your hand? To help you put the gloves on."

"Why would I need the gloves?"

"I told you. We are doing the lab together."

"Blake that is going to take forever. And how am I going to do anything? I can't see."

"No. But you can feel. So we are going to take our time and go through the lab, together."

"I'm sure you have other things to do. Better things to do."

Blake helps Weiss put her rubber gloves on and they carry on with the lab.

They take turns reading the instructions and when it's Weiss' turn to use the tools and be hands on, Blake helps guide her hands and helps her feel different places within the frog so that she can create a mental image of what she feels.

It does take them over an hour longer than all of their classmates to finish. But Blake had gotten the exception from their professor, considering the circumstances, and Weiss' willingness to learn.

Blake does offer to clean up their table and place their frog specimen into the storage container and put it away until the next lab.

When they go to leave, Weiss reaches out and feels for Blake's arm. When she finds it, she travels her hand down Blake's forearm until she reaches her hand and grabs hold of it. Instinctually, Blake tightens her grip, completely linking their fingers together.

It surprises Blake, because they usually just link their arms at the elbow. But she makes no move to let go of Weiss' hand. The entire walk through the building, she listens as Weiss raves about what it was like to help dissect the frog. Her free hand waving around so expressively that Blake couldn't keep the smile off of her face, even if she tried.

As they approach Klein, who waits patiently on the sidewalk beside Weiss' car, Blake slowly drops her hold on Weiss' hand and turns to face her.

"Miss Schnee." Klein announces his presence, so Weiss knows they have gotten to their destination.

"Well, I guess this is your stop, huh?"

Weiss reaches out for her, haphazardly grasping for the sleeves of Blake's shirt before pulling her towards her, embracing her in a tight hug.

"Thank you." She mumbles into Blake's shoulder.

"What for?" Blake brings her arm up behind Weiss' back to return the hug.

"For today. For taking the time to help me. No one has ever done that for me before. Treated me like I was capable, like a partner. It means a lot to me."

"Of course. You are more than capable. Anyone that has taken two minutes to get to know you would know that much. We can do it for the rest of the labs too. I don't mind."

"That would be amazing." Weiss says as she takes a step back, breaking the hug.

"Have a good rest of your day, Weiss." She utters as Weiss hands Klein her bag and reaches out to feel for the car door.

"Bye, Blake. You too." Weiss gives her one last smile before the car door closes.

Klein bids Blake a proper goodbye and she waves to him and she watches for a few seconds as the car makes its way down the street.

She's happy that Weiss was able to feel better after participating in their lab. But it still breaks her heart that Weiss had to feel frustrated and useless at the beginning. Blake decides right then and there that whenever she is around, Weiss will never have to worry about feeling that way ever again. Not if Blake could help it.