Author's Notes

This is the last chapter.

Happy rats, and don't do crimes!

Chapter 50 – we'll be oK

"I…see," said Ruby. "That's a lot to take in."

"I'm sorry. Do you want me to re-explain anything?" asked Blake. "I'd be happy to."

"No, it's fine. Nothing's too confusing, it's just that there's just so much. It changes the way I look at a lot of things, I guess."

"Not too negative, I hope?" Blake said. She was fishing for something affirmative, but Ruby just looked upwards as though she were deep in thought. Blake considered repeating the question in case Ruby hadn't heard it the first time, but she decided against it, for fear of not getting an answer she would like.

Ilia spared her a nervous glance.

"Um, Ruby. Are you…upset?"

Ruby shook her head. "I don't think so. I don't think you're evil or something. I mean, you explained it really well, so I understand where you were coming from and why you had to be so top secret and all. I mean, you thought Cardin was out there looking to kill you, so you couldn't know who to trust. I get it."

"Actually, we didn't know it was Cardin at the time."

"Oh. Same difference, I guess."

"Well…y-yeah. You're right. Same thing." Blake held off on saying that it meant they had initially suspected Ruby. She probably didn't need to hear that right now.

"It means we weren't sure who the killer was, and anyone could have been a suspect," said Adam. "Even you."

Blake looked at him in disgust, but he held up his hands.

"She wanted to know the full truth. I don't think there should be anything hidden. The choice should be hers."

Blake bit down a grumble, because deep down, she intellectually knew he was right. Lying to Ruby was the shovel with which they'd dug the hole they were presently trapped in, so telling the truth could be their ladder out. Still, it stung to see Ruby cringe at Adam's words.

"Ruby, I–"

"It's okay. I think…I think that you were doing the right thing. As a huntress, I get that the most important part of life is helping and saving others. If there had been aura-transferred super soldiers or evil Fall maidens running rampant, people would have died. Yeah, you made mistakes, but I think I choose to believe that you all are good people, at the end of the day."

Blake sighed a breath of relief. Ruby didn't hate her. As long as that was true, she could be okay. K could be okay.

"Oh, Ruby, you have no idea how glad I am to hear that."

Ruby snickered. "So wait – if I was a suspect at one point, that means that back in initiation…" She giggled again. "…you thought I was a secret spy or something! Oh, that's a good one!"

Blake found herself joining in on the laughter. Ruby had been distraught and torn apart back in the vault, but that was clearly because of the stress of everything that had happened at once. The Grimm incursion, the maiden powers, finding out about K – now, she was calmly celebrating the enduring survival of her school and freedom from the burden Ozpin had tried to foist upon her.

"Me, a secret spy." Ruby wiped a tear. "Man…"

A hand pushed Blake forward. She looked back to see Adam and Ilia averting their eyes. Their silence told her everything she needed to know about which member of K was expected to pop the question.

"Ruby…"

"Yeah?"

"Um…how would you like to be a…secret spy?"

"What, you mean for Vale? Some kinda Valean Secret Spy? Like, a part of the VS–"

"N-Not quite."

Blake steeled up her nerves and bit down on her teeth. Here goes nothing.

"Ruby, we were wondering if you would be interested in joining K."

Tightly shutting her eyes, she waited for Ruby to answer. The fear that Ruby would respond negatively was terrifying to her, so much so that even the uncertainty of not seeing Ruby's facial reaction was preferable to risking seeing a frown. The only thing she could do for now was keep her eyelids firmly sealed and wait until the verbal answer inevitably shattered her comforting veil of ignorance.

Blake opened her eyes.

"A-Are you serious? You want me…to join you?"

"Ruby…" Blake breathed.

"Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me."

"R-Ruby?"

Ruby's eyes narrowed. "You've messing with me, right? Look, I don't hate you guys or anything. You were doing the right thing, you were just following orders, yada yada yada. But there's no way in Vacuo that I'd just drop my dreams of becoming a huntress, my education at Beacon, and literally everything I've ever known just to join you. I think you lot did the right thing ethically, but it still doesn't sit right with me that you straight up lied to me for months on end. And now you're asking me to go around, lying to everyone else the way you lied to me. Plus, if I joined your little club, I'd have no real friends outside of the three of you, and I'd constantly have to pack up my life and move when a mission ends. Like I assume you all are doing right now?"

"Y-Yeah, but–"

"I don't want to join your K." Ruby's eyes widened. "Oh, shit. O…K. You were saying it right in front of me. You were rubbing it into my chump face, and I didn't even have a clue. I even said it a bunch of times and didn't realize what it meant. Dust, I feel like such an idiot."

"You're not an idiot," Adam said quickly.

Ruby laughed apprehensively. "I'm not so sure about that. I mean, I thought you were my friends, right?"

Blake wanted to say that they really were. No, she wanted to scream it. She wanted to tell Ruby that she meant more to her than anything, that she'd gladly barter away the maiden powers if it meant Ruby would change her mind.

But she didn't.

She couldn't.

"What will you do?" asked Ilia. "I mean, if you don't come with us…I don't know. You gonna go hunt solo?"

"Team Yellowjacket-P has an open spot. I talked to Yang, and she's promised I can have it. She's happy because we get to spend more quality time together as sisters. I think she's trying to make up for when we were kids, but she doesn't need to. I'm happy with just being her family right now. Pyrrha's okay with it since Jaune didn't want to come back, and she can keep in touch with him from Vale. Sky doesn't care as long as the team stays together."

"You'll stop being a leader," Adam put forth, grasping at straws. "It'll be a demotion."

"Was I ever really your leader? Was Team Rabies ever even –"

"Yes," said Blake. "I know you probably feel like you can't trust us, but it was real. I promise, what we had was real. What…What I felt for you was real. The two of us…we were real."

"Yeah, I've had some time to think about how you talked to me in the vault." Ruby's face fell, and she honestly looked more annoyed with Blake than bitter or resentful.

"I don't think there ever really was an us. There was a you three." She pointed. "And a me."

Blake couldn't breathe. She had a feeling she really wasn't going to look forward to what Ruby said next.

"Blake, you brought up the prom. That night, once we'd left and gone off on our own, you told me things about yourself. You opened up to me about your parents and your pain, and I felt like I knew something special about you. It was the romantic moment of my life, and I felt like I saw the real Blake Belladonna. I liked you before, but that was the moment I fell in love with you. Now I know that you were lying through your teeth about your parents and what had happened to them. Our love was built on a lie."

"There's–"

"And those combo moves we practiced? You just needed me to be excited for the tournament so I put effort into it and we could win. You guys only cared about the entire tournament because it was a possible pathway to the maiden powers. It was your mission to care. Forever Fall – well, I don't have anything to say about that, but can you truly promise me that nothing about our field trip/date-thing was fake? That you had zero ulterior motives when you approached me, and you just wanted to spend time collecting sap with your partner? I doubt it. And even if I'm wrong, I can't help but wonder about it, and I would keep wondering about every little thing from now on. That just shows how little I can trust you. All three of you."

Blake felt sick in her mouth, because back in Forever Fall, she actually had only approached Ruby because she'd wanted to seduce information out of her. She'd buried the memory under the happy moments they'd spent, playing around with their sap and gazing lovingly into each other's eyes and being each other's together, but Ruby was right. So much of what they had, so much of the 'us' Blake desperately wanted to preserve, was only a part of K's grand ruse.

I meant what I said to her in the vault. Team Rabies was real, and so was the affection we felt for Ruby. It wasn't all just a lie.

…it wasn't ALL just a lie, but some of it was. And now, Ruby will never be able to trust what was and wasn't. So much of what happened between us was defined by what we needed to get out of her. Our objective seemed so critical at the time, but now that it's over, it just seems like a foul taint that's souring everything we and Ruby shared.

Ruby sighed and shook her head. "You lied to me. That's not something you can just apologize for, sing a musical number about, and move on from. You and I are through, for good. I'm sorry, Blake, but we're through."

There was nothing to say, so no one said anything. It would've been completely silent if not for the sound of Blake failing to hold back her crying, and Port and Oobleck chatting as Oobleck pushed Port's wheelchair some distance away, unaware of the tragedy taking place not a stone's throw from them.

"You have our scroll numbers," said Adam. "If you ever want to talk."

"I'm not going to change my mind about any of this. I won't ever be a part of your K, and Blake and I are d–"

"Not to join us or get back together with Blake. Just to talk, if you ever should wish it. For closure, to rant at us, if you ever need help on a mission...anything. We're friends, are we not?"

Ruby said nothing, turning to look at the hunter statue. Water no longer flowed from the fountain, so it was little more than a shell of its former self. It was pretty to look at, but the functionality was completely gone.

"W-We're friends, r-r-right?" asked Ilia. Unlike Blake and Adam, she wasn't shy about hiding the pain in her voice, and she could barely eke out her question due to the number of times her voice cracked midsentence.

Blake had been prepared for condemnation and loathing, but somehow Ruby's silence was ever worse. At least she's still speaking in general. At least we haven't broken her. Even if she and I can't be happy together, I'm glad she's got the opportunity to be happy with her new team and her sister.

Ruby didn't even say goodbye as she walked off.

"So that's it?" asked Blake. "That's the end?"

"That's the end," said Adam. "Mission accomplished, by every metric. And now we get to enjoy the rewards."

Ilia couldn't contain herself and was bawling. Adam wondered how Blake was holding it together without any waterworks.

Personally, the only reason he wasn't crying was that he actually was crying. Fortunately, he was turned away from the others, pretending to brood, so they couldn't see the tears streak down his face.

That little human had wormed her way into his heart, and he was damn well going to miss her. He'd genuinely believed that the conversation had been going well up until the point where it had soured, and that her accepting their offer was more or less guaranteed. In the end, she didn't hate them for what they'd done when she knew it had been for a good cause, but she couldn't like them personally after they'd burned her so deeply. Ruby was lost to them.

He felt so alone.

But he wasn't.

"Screw it."

Adam turned around, letting the girls get a good view of his tears, and pulled them both into a group hug. Yes, Ruby was gone, but that didn't mean that he would have to torture himself by bottling up his feelings and pretending they didn't exist. If anything, this whole experience had taught him that he needed to be more open with the truth. It didn't come easy for him – in fact, it ran counter to his instincts as a spy – but Blake and Ilia were more than just fellow agents. They were his sisters, and he could trust them with every part of himself, even the ugly ones.

"I hope she calls us," blubbered Ilia, her voice barely recognizable as her eyes watered and her nose ran. Adam made a mental note to launder his coat later, but for now, he just held her tightly. "W-Will she?"

"I don't know," Adam admitted as the younger women looked to him for reassurance that he couldn't provide. "Forever is a long time to hold a grudge, but if love can last into eternity, so can hate. I just don't know."

Since they weren't taking on an extra passenger, K was able to break down their room and pack it up fairly quickly. Blake's books were their only material possessions, but she'd decided to leave half her collection in their room, just in case Ruby came back and decided to keep them. It was a long shot, but she said that even on the one-in-a-million chance that it worked, the rewards would be worth the loss of some old hardcovers.

Team Yellowjacket-P, Jaune included, was waiting for them at the bullhead docks back to Vale. K exchanged pleasantries and goodbyes, expressing sorrow that their paths had diverged from those of hunters.

From that of Ruby's.

Yang was clearly perceptive enough to realize that Blake and Ruby had broken up, and Team Rabies had experienced a falling out, but she didn't mention a word of it. The extent of this falling out was uncertain to her – Ilia didn't know how, but she somehow felt absolutely sure that Ruby wasn't going to out them as Atlesian spies – but Yang and her team must've thought it was just a difference of opinions about the Faunus quitting their Beacon career as hunters and Ruby not liking that.

"We'll see you around, okay?"

"M-Maybe."

K wasn't supposed to have ties to too many people who could potentially interrupt their missions, but Adam and Winter were now an official couple even though Winter was no longer a specialist. Maybe Ilia could keep in touch with some of her friends, as long as it didn't compromise K's abilities. Yang may have annoyed her, but she would probably be their only connection to Ruby, so Ilia would suffer the indignity of a thousand Yang puns if that meant a single chance for reconciliation someday in the future.

"I'm sorry that thing didn't work out," said Pyrrha. "Blake, it's been a pleasure to meet you."

"Hey," protested Ilia weakly. "What about the rest of us?"

"Oh my goodness, I didn't mean to alienate – I just meant that, because I already knew who – oh dear, this is so embarrassing. Oh, I'm so sorry!"

Ilia chuckled. Pyrrha was still Pyrrha, the same old shy girl who could slay an Ursa Major with ease but tripped over her own feet when it was time to speak up. At least there was one constant in this dramatically changing world of hers.

None of them even touched on the Goliath in the room. It was probably because any platitude they gave about time healing all wounds or Ruby just needing space would be meaningless. As much as Ilia was trying to hold out hope, there was a very real possibility that she would never come around, and her last memory of the little reaper would be their stilted, aching goodbye. Just her cape, getting smaller and smaller, until she was no more.

"Well, here comes the airship. Try not to crash land this one into the docks, Belladonna," joked Yang.

"I won't."

"I was being…n-never mind. Goodbye, you guys. It's been a pleasure."

Hands were shaken, farewells were exchanged, and before Ilia knew it, they were ascending the ramp onto the bullhead. Adam sat in the middle, allowing both of the much shorter ladies to nestle their heads onto both his shoulders as they sat together in silence.

Winter boarded not long after, greeting Adam with a kiss and sitting next to Blake. The flight would be taking them to Vale, where they would catch a commercial connection to Argus, and then back home. Ironwood didn't have a mission for them, so they'd been promised a sizeable chunk of shore leave to make up for their back-to-back assignments. Honestly, Ilia had been wearing masks for so long that she wasn't entirely sure what she was going to do with so much time off and no assignment to focus on. Still, however she chose to spend it, she'd be with Adam and Ilia, so it would be alright.

Winter was with them all the way to Argus, where she stayed behind to scour Mistral and verify reports of a Grimm crab that would supposedly do nicely in summoned white. She and Adam would probably have preferred something more than a long distance relationship with intermittent meet-ups when the two of them weren't busy, but given Blake's disastrous romance, he was probably just happy they were still together. Winter promised to visit frequently and call regularly, and K took what they could get.

The following night, when it was just the three of them on the transoceanic flight to Atlas, Adam gripped them both tightly by the shoulder in their seats.

"I love you both," he whispered.

"Careful not to let your girlfriend hear that," teased Blake. "Don't want to give her the wrong idea."

"The girlfriend you see as a mother?" Adam teased right back.

"Oh, burn," said Ilia.

"Well, my semblance is to absorb hits and send them right back," said Adam. "Winter loves you both as well. I know things might seem rough, but we all still have each other. We'll be okay."

Ilia smiled in spite of herself and nodded back. "We'll be o…K."

Adam snorted and reclined back in his seat. Blake shook her head at the two and opened up her most recent borderline softcore book. With nothing else to do for the three hour flight back to Atlas, Ilia closed her eyes and tried to relax.

Whatever came next, they would be ok.

Ilia's scroll dinged.

Author's Notes

So, that was the end.

Extra big oof. Sorry, Rat's Nest (that what you all are called).

I know it's a bit of a downer for the last chapter, but if you followed me all this way and read this whole thing, you must have known that there wasn't going to be a happy-go-lucky resolution to everyone's problems. Honestly, as much as keeping Team Rabies together might have been wholesome and cute, it would've felt like a step in the wrong direction for Ruby's personal growth. K didn't treat her right, and her relationship with Blake was somewhere on the verge of toxic and low-level emotionally neglectful. Sorry to all Ladybug shippers – this is not meant to be a criticism of the ship, just a failure on K-Blake's part to be as mature as she thought she was. As it was, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to keep that last line or just toss it entirely for something far more depressing. In the end, I decided to leave it vague.

It's up to you to decide what that last line means. I just felt like it would've been too grim to just leave the fic on that depressing note without…something. I will say that Ruby was absolutely serious when she said that she has no intention of joining K or reconciling with Blake, so it is Not with a capital N Ruby looking to get back together. Maybe it's not even Ruby; Weiss could be badgering Ilia over her whereabouts.

The ending wasn't meant to be based on any other stories, but I would be lying if I didn't intend it as a slight, eh, a slight slight against the bland reconciliation I've read in other stories in spite of characters blatantly lying to one another. *cough* In The Kingdom's Service *cough* I won't name any names, but you know who you are.

Unlike the return of Jaune and the reveal of Cardin, I will defend this aspect of the ending to the end. I will die on the hill that Ruby needed to break up with K (even though she doesn't cut off all contact with them forever).

As always, feel free to ask any questions or post any comments, and I will do my best to answer them.

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THE FUTURE OF THE RAT

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Will there be a sequel to K?

I mulled this over, given that Salem is still out there with Tyrian, Watts, Lionheart, and all her other forces. Blake hypothesized about them, and there's definitely a future there.

The problem with that is that I just don't want to continue the story. I do love the characters and want them to do more, but I feel like the ending was here, and writing a seKuel (that's horrible) would take something away from the conclusion here. K didn't have a happy ending, it had a realistic ending, so writing a follow up would just make this bleak break-up with Ruby less meaningful.

No. There will not be a sequel to K.

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So this is the end?

Maybe.

I don't have an outline, but I also more seriously considered a spin-off about a side character (maybe Jaune/Pyrrha or Weiss-centric) set several years later and meeting up with the broken remnants of K. I do feel like civilian Jaune being forced back into the huntsman life against his will or a more final ending to K-Weiss' story where Cardin's in jail and Russel bailed on her wouldn't harm the permanence of the ending of K. That might come out, but it would be after I finish my other stories ideas, and only if I don't change my mind, so don't hold your breath. If I did, it would NOT be called arK or sKhnee. That would be horrible.

It would not include Ruby, if it did. I don't mean to keep hammering it home, but this chapter was the definitive ending of her story. She won't be coming back.

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What will be next, then?

I will be releasing a new work to fill K's spot in the weekly update routine. It will be a series of 5 stand-alone one shot joke stories (with the potential for more) that will hopefully buy me enough time to finish my real next story, a Neo-centric fic.

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Happy rats, and don't do crime!