Yang Xiao Long was used to being the rock of the group- a shoulder to lean on and an encouraging, unstoppable force that refused to bend or buckle even in the face of stupefying odds. Even though she knew that she wasn't the type to have all, or even most of the answers, she could stand strong and beat her head against any wall that blocked her path until it fell over. People looked to her for strength, compassion, and reassurance that they were on the right path, and she was always happy to help them along and try to get others to look on the bright side. With the untimely and sudden loss of her sister, though, everything had changed in an instant.

The rock hadn't just cracked- it had shattered.

There was only so much Yang could cry before her eyes felt raw and dry, and the swirling thoughts in her head had slowly devolved into a murky soup of just feeling awful without any one clear thread to latch on to. Yang was just there in a lump, laying atop her teammate's lap and existing without purpose. The thought that she no longer wanted to exist came and went, but Yang had no real desire in either direction. In the moment, she felt as though she had no particular attachment to anything at all, and no reason to ever get up off the floor of the transport.

Blake felt similarly in some ways, and entirely differently in others. She desperately wanted to help her friend but had absolutely no idea how to go about it. Stroking Yang's hair was out of the question for a whole host of reasons. Small talk was out, and the faunus knew she was terrible at it anyway in the best of situations, let alone mid-disaster. Her own feelings about the loss of Ruby prevented her from apologizing, and Yang's blood relation made any thought of talking it out feel intensely selfish and unneeded. There was nothing to do or say, and so, Blake just held on to her friend's remaining hand. She looked down to Yang's face in surprise as she felt a sudden, tight squeeze. It was firm enough to hurt, but Blake wasn't about to protest.

"…what are we doing?"

"What do you mean?" Blake dared to ask, already afraid of where the discussion might be going.

"Why did we think we ever stood a chance?" Yang asked as she looked up at Blake with a sniffle. "She's immortal. She's unstoppable… and we're standing in her way, expecting to make it out alive. We're so fucking stupid…"

"…it isn't stupid to stand up against impossible odds," Blake tried, not quite believing her own words… until a sudden spark went off in her mind. "It's stupid to believe that the odds are impossible…"

Yang blinked, simply staring straight up at her friend and teammate.

"Blake, what the fuck are you talking about?"

"Lasting peace between humans and faunus was thought to be impossible," Blake began. "The White Fang were labeled as totally unreasonable and unable to be placated, and that was common wisdom for years. Almost everyone believed that there could never be a peaceful solution… but we're slowly making our way toward it. Salem is invincible because we were told Salem is invincible. Where did that knowledge even come from? Who said that, and why should we trust them?"

"Sun killed her down at the docks," Yang said flatly. "She got back up. We tore her apart in midair, and she came back. A plane just flew straight into her, and she's going to come back again. What more proof do you need?"

"Maybe we're just going about it the wrong way," Blake suggested. "Maybe we need to… what if only the Relics can kill her? What if there's an answer in the Land of Darkness?"

"What if the only person who could answer those questions is also fucking dead, alongside my sister?" Yang snapped. She exhaled forcefully through her nose and shook her head, softening her voice as best she could. "Alongside… Ruby. This is your loss, too."

"Yang, no, she was your sister," Blake insisted as the blonde let go of her hand. "How I feel about any of this doesn't m-"

"It absolutely matters!" Yang yelled as she dragged herself up into a sitting position. "This isn't just about me. I can't just lay here sulking, as much as I want to…"

"You need time," Blake said warily as Yang suddenly stood up and clenched her fist. "You need to grieve, we need to figure out how t-"

A sudden punch into the side of the hull interrupted her words, and then a voice rang out from within the cockpit.

"Could you not!? It's rough enough flying around swarms of grimm!"

"I need…" Yang started, ignoring Harriet's warning, "I need to just… fucking deal with it. Handle my own problems. Move on, shut it out, and keep pushing forward."

Blake hurriedly dragged herself to her feet and dared to grip Yang's shoulder.

"Yang, that isn't healthy and y-"

"Losing my fucking sister isn't healthy!" Yang roared as she batted the faunus' hand away. "Pretending we're making any difference isn't healthy! Nothing about any of this is… just… leave me the hell alone. Let me deal with this the way I want to deal with it."

"No," Blake insisted. "I'm not letting you spiral. I'm not letting you do this to yourself! If Sun hadn't stepped in and forced me to come back around after I ran off at Beacon…"

"Oh, so all I need is a knight in shining fucking armor to pull me out of this?" Yang questioned. "Some selfless, stubborn jackass to force me to reconsider and stop beating myself up?"

"Yes!" Blake emphasized. "You need people. You need us. Let us share the burden with you, even if we don't know how. "You have me. You have Sun, Jaune…"

Yang let her head fall forward into the side of the cargo hold and closed her eyes. She hated how confused and turbulent she felt about everything. All she could do to keep from lashing out again was to keep talking as she found out she was not, in fact, out of tears just yet.

"…I can't put this on Jaune," Yang denied. "He didn't sign up for this, and he's grieving, too."

"Then that's even more reason to lean on him," Blake pointed out. "He's going to lean on you… and what do you mean he didn't sign up for this? We all knew the risks when we became hunters…"

"That's not what I meant," Yang began to explain as she pressed her forehead harder into the metal, letting the cold seep into her skull in an effort to do something for her throbbing headache. "Jaune and I are fucking, if you didn't hear. I don't know what it is, and I don't really care, but it's not… serious."

Blake raised a brow and folded her arms across her chest.

"…why don't I believe you?"

"Because you're trying to piss me off," Yang replied, her tone entirely devoid of any bite.

"I think it's because you hesitated," Blake countered. "Jaune isn't the type to just… do that and not care about the person he's with. Even I know that."

"…it's not serious yet," Yang admitted. "I don't know if I want it to be, or if he wants that, or… Corsac is also in on it, and the three of us are all… it's complicated, Blake, and it doesn't need more complication over something like this. I'll handle this on my own."

"No, you won't," Blake ordered once again. "And it sounds complicated. "What do you mean 'the three of you?' Are you all involved in a relationship, or…?"

"I don't know," Yang admitted. "It's not there yet, but it might be headed there, and… I'm open to it, and so is Corsac, but I don't know how Jaune feels. It doesn't matter, especially right now."

"Good."

"Good?" Yang asked, finally peeling her forehead from the hull and looking back at her friend once again. The cold had done nothing to help- if anything, she only felt more miserable. "What do you mean good?"

"If things end up that way, you'll have two partners to lean on," Blake explained. "Stop closing yourself off. It's n-"

"If you say 'healthy', I'm going to punch you," Yang warned. "I don't need a lecture, and I don't care."

"Ruby shut herself off right before this happened," Blake said, tensing up as she dropped her arms and bent her knees slightly. Though she was loathe to admit it, she was terrified and half-expecting her friend to lunge for her as she doubled down. "You saw it too, didn't you? Something wasn't right. She wasn't acting like herself, and she refused to take any advice or warning. Ruby forced her involvement in all of this, and she clearly wasn't okay! You're acting right now like she was acting an hour ago, and it's scaring me! I don't want to lose you, too!"

Yang's breathing had quickened while Blake was talking, and she did clench her fist. She was right on the edge of charging forward, until Blake finished what she had been saying. The finality of it all took the wind right out of Yang's sails and instead of working herself up further, her breathing simply stopped. She knew that with her next breath, it would all suddenly become too real. The circumstances would rush back to the forefront of her mind, and there would be no more escaping it through inaction, forcing herself to move forward, or retreating into her own isolated corner. Yang knew that Blake was right, and there was no more running from it.

Blake knew, too, and was ready to catch Yang as she began to fall to her knees.

"I could have stopped her," Yang said as her breathing became uneven and Blake kept her in a tight hold. "I didn't push hard enough for her to stay."

"You tried," Blake insisted, rubbing against Yang's back. "I was there, and you tried to stop her. You couldn't just outright control her, especially when she was in that state. Whatever happened when she went back to Beacon did damage you couldn't undo in one conversation. This isn't your fault, Yang…"

"Then why do I feel l-"

"Because we're fucking stupid," Blake declared, finally interrupting instead of allowing herself to be interrupted. "You said it yourself."

"…yeah, I guess I did…"

"Maybe if you had more time with her… maybe if you had stayed behind in Atlas yourself… but that's not what happened," Blake reminded. "You did the best you could with the situation we were handed. No one here is going to blame you for what happened, so don't blame yourself. Please? What's going on right now with us might be what Ruby needed. I don't want to see you go down that same road. I won't let you do it… and neither will Jaune, or… apparently Corsac, as weird as that sounds to say out loud. But in order for this to work, you need to let us in. The only thing you need to do right now, before we get to Vacuo, is let us in. Lean on us. Let us support you."

Yang worked to steady her breathing. It took several minutes for her to calm down as she focused on Blake's embrace and actively tried to push anything else out of her mind. Finally, she reached some sort of reprieve from the constant buzzing in her brain and managed a single, strained word.

"…okay."

"I'm never going to leave you again," Blake pledged. "I'm never going to let myself, or anyone else, do what I did to you at Beacon. We're going to stand strong and get through this together… and the second comms are back online, we're going to check on Weiss."

"…and the second we land, we're going to check on Jaune," Yang added. "We have to. He can't be taking this well…"

"I'll make sure Sun can speak his mind, too," Blake added. "This is going to suck. All of this sucks… but the only way we'll all make it and keep moving forward is if we do it together."

"Yeah," Yang agreed, feeling rather hollow. "I'm still going to need time…"

"Of course," Blake agreed. "Just don't do anything drastic without talking to us first. We love you, Yang. This isn't over."

"This won't be over until we find a way to bring Salem down," Yang said. "Even if we can't kill her, and even if I don't believe it's possible to do anything right now… I'm not giving up. I won't let her break me."

"It's impossible to break us," Blake replied as she pulled back to look Yang in the eye. "We'll make it true… and Salem is going to find out the hard way."

Author's Note:

So… I completely understand why several people are expecting otherwise considering how most stories go, but I think it needs to be said to avoid people not realizing it until months from now- Ruby's dead. Like… dead-dead , and so is Oscar. There isn't going to be some grand reveal that they survived Salem's attack on their ship. It's permanent and was always the plan for her arc.

Sure does leave a lot of things unresolved surrounding her and Oz, though, doesn't it? If only there was a plan to address that, too…

-RD