Author's note: I know what Word of God says about Ruby's parentage. I also know that this show loves to puff up symbolism and weaponry-as-metaphor, and I further know what that same show gave us in V9. You can't give us dots and then tell us don't connect them.

The reunion party roared on. The celebration of the impossible return of RWBY-J had brought joy and tears to all who'd known them. Even with the threat of war looming overhead, they'd all taken time to cheer this impossible occasion, commandeering Shade Academy's ballroom for the purpose.

Qrow watched from above as the party continued. He'd had his turn, he'd had his share. The girls had come back to him first, after all. He loved them dearly for that. That meant, though, that this time was for everyone else. Everyone else could get a chance to be happy about the girls' return. He didn't need to inflict himself upon that cheery gathering.

He patted his chest pocket for his flask. His fingers found it, but unsatisfyingly. Mixed feelings tore him up once more. He'd tried to quit in Atlas, he'd tried really hard. For a while he'd even succeeded, or thought he had, anyway. He should have known better. Success could only ever be temporary against this enemy. After Atlas, after they found themselves in this sand pit, with the girls and their team seemingly gone, he'd fallen off the wagon, hard. He hadn't been that bad since, well, since Argus. And before Argus, the worst he'd been was... when they lost Summer, probably.

Echoes. Thematic unity, or something flowery like that. Qrow was no poet.

But now, maybe, just maybe, he could try and go clean again.

He frowned in self-censure. That wasn't fair, making the girls responsible for whether or not he could control his alcoholism. That was an opponent he should have to fight. It wouldn't be right to set conditions on his sobriety, to tie his sobriety to other, innocent people.

A particularly loud burst of laughter, that was at least a third a sob, reached him from the floor of the ballroom. He grinned. That's why he removed himself from these situations, to let everyone else be that much freer, that much happier. His keen eyes tracked down the source. It seemed to be Nora, who was speaking some but mostly listening, as Jaune related some story from their time in that other world. It looked vaguely embarrassing, from the way Jaune had one hand behind his head. His other hand, Qrow noticed, was by his side, paralyzed. Nora had taken a seemingly permanent hold of his wrist, as if she was afraid that if she let go he would fall out of existence.

Not an unreasonable fear, Qrow supposed, all things considered.

Qrow had thought, once upon a time, that he was privy to all the great mysteries. He'd thought that being in Ozpin's inner circle read him into the greatest secrets. Sure, he'd always known that Oz kept some things to himself, but he'd assumed that was just compartmentalization, Ozpin keeping the details of all the plates he had spinning separate from his different agents to not compromise them. It was just operational security. He hadn't suspected that there were deeper secrets that Ozpin had been sitting on, or that there were even deeper ones Ozpin himself had never known.

Speaking of Oz, or rather Oscar, Oscar seemed strangely absent from the proceedings. He'd been right in the midst of the celebration at first, but Qrow couldn't see hide nor hair of him now.

Qrow kept looking while his fingers idly traced the outline of the flask in his pocket, until he saw Oscar emerging from one of the hallways branching off from the ballroom... Along with Ruby, who looked rather pleased with herself.

Huh.

Qrow tried to set the odds as to whether or not those two had been making out. Oscar, for his part, looked somewhat flustered, somewhat confused, but also vaguely happy. Not quite what Qrow would expect for someone who'd just gotten their first kiss. Then again, his posture didn't suggest that she'd given him the "let's be friends speech" either, which left all sorts of possibilities on the table. Qrow set his odds at 60-40 against, which was honestly a lot closer than he'd expected.

All sorts of avenues for teasing were opening up before him, and he smiled. The only question was whether Oscar or Ruby would be better targets for it. Possibly both.

His eyes tracked over to Ruby to see if he could refine his plans anymore, but to his surprise Ruby had not rejoined the main group. Instead, she was ascending one of the staircases-and Qrow realized with growing panic that he was the only person on the upper deck she could be trying to join, and that he wasn't ready for that.

Oh, he was absolutely grateful to have seen her and he'd cried all over her and her team, but he didn't think he was ready for anything else. To go any further. His fingers tightened on his shirt pocket, but as she topped the stairs and turned in his direction and those silver eyes fell on him, he knew he couldn't possibly pull the flask out. Not in front of her, not now.

He forced his hand rigidly to his side and watched as she approached. She was smiling. Just that made him so happy. He wanted her to always be smiling. It was an unrealistic goal, their times were too tough for that, but as much as possible. It was all he'd ever wanted for her, really.

"Hey, Uncle Qrow," said Ruby as she neared.

"Hey, pipsqueak," he shot right back at her, finding his voice despite his spiking stress levels.

"You know, I don't really think that nickname applies anymore. You loved calling me that before, but I'm not little anymore."

She had a point, but Qrow would never admit that. "You'll always be little to me," he said.

"What about when you're old and bent like Maria?" Ruby said playfully. "When you start losing your height and you got a stoop from slouching your whole life, what then?"

"I'll never be as small as Maria."

"Nah, but you'll be like her in dimensions, in the shape of it anyway. That'll bring you down to my level!"

"Yeah, except that you're thinking 'pipsqueak' has to do with size, and that's only part of it." Qrow smiled. "I remember you when you were itty bitty. You were a pipsqueak then, and because of that you'll always be 'pipsqueak' to me."

"When I was itty bitty, huh?" said Ruby, and she wasn't quite as playful anymore. A contemplative air had taken over her, as she looked at Qrow searchingly. He had no idea what she could be looking for, so he uncomfortably half-turned towards the railing so that he could look out over the crowd once more.

It broke eye contact, which was some kind of defense.

She fell into position beside him, not looking up at him either, and for a moment there was quiet. Qrow knew better than to take comfort from this fact. He knew all about calms that came before storms.

"We saw a lot of things in the Ever After," said Ruby.

"Sounds like it," said Qrow.

"Some of it was pretty wild."

"I heard."

"Well, I didn't tell the whole group everything I saw."

"Yeah?"

"Some of it was a bit more… personal."

"Hm," said Qrow, hoping that if he was off-putting enough and non-engaging enough that she'd give it up.

No such luck, of course. "I was thinking back to our home in Patch," Ruby said, the non-sequitur leaving Qrow flat-footed. "We've got lots of pictures of mom, and of you and dad… but I never remember seeing a picture of mom's weapon. And when I thought about it, I couldn't ever remember seeing it, couldn't remember what it looked like."

Qrow's chest seized up. No, this couldn't possibly be where she was going… right?

"Well," said Ruby, taking in a breath to steel herself. "In the Ever After, I saw it. I didn't recognize it as mom's weapon… until I did."

"How?" said Qrow, alarmed.

"Magic."

"Oh. Right. Magic." The ultimate and also worst explanation.

"Sundered Rose," Ruby said reverently. "A single-edged battle axe in its base form, with a mecha-shift to rifle."

Qrow found it hard to breathe.

"I never knew that," she said, "but it also felt like I sort of did, you know?" Qrow absolutely did, but he didn't trust himself to speak. After a few seconds of chewing on her thoughts, Ruby continued. "Do you remember when I was starting to make my own weapon? I had all sorts of options. You taught me a lot, and so did dad of course, and there were all these different things I saw from the students at Signal… but I kept gravitating in the same direction. I wasn't even trying to, it was just like falling. Like Crescent Rose was supposed to be this way all along. Like it was who I truly am, and I knew it before I ever picked up a hammer."

Qrow was watching the disaster unfold in slow motion. He knew where she was going, knew where she was taking this, and there was nothing, nothing he could do to stop it.

"A warrior's sword is her soul," Ruby recited, looking up to Qrow at last with those implacable, unstoppable silver eyes. "I knew my weapon, knew my soul, right from the beginning. And if I ever forgot, the Ever After made it explicit. Crescent Rose is who I truly am. Part of it is from my mother, and part from my father, just like me. Summer Rose's rifle." Her eyes were piercing, and her expression wasn't cruel, but it was decisive. "And my father's..."

"No," blurted out Qrow.

She blinked, but Qrow barely noticed it. Long-buried emotions were geysering up within him, scalding him from the inside. Joy and regret, pride and shame, trust and betrayal, all of it inside of, shaped by, this heavy blanket of sorrow and regret.

"Don't say it," he said, his vision starting to blur. "I can't hear you say it."

Her face softened, but whether in sympathy or pity he couldn't tell. "You spent too long pretending it wasn't true, didn't you? Too long running from the truth, and now the truth burns."

Time was supposed to heal all wounds, but this was the opposite. Ruby was right in ways she didn't even know. He'd dammed up all these feelings for so long, and now the levee had burst and the floodwaters were washing him away.

Because there were things he wanted so badly, so badly it stung, it hurt, but he was Qrow Branwen and he didn't get to have them, could never have them. It was better for everyone if he never did.

And that just made it hurt all the worse, because he wanted it so badly, too badly to just give it up and forget about it. He wanted to forget those nights, wished they hadn't been the best in his miserable little life, but he clung to them all the same, those precious memories he didn't want to forsake, that in his weakness he clung to even though he knew better.

What made it worse was that he'd never talked about it with Tai, had never discussed it with him, had never come clean with him, even though he must have known, he had to have known, one look at Ruby should have told him everything, and there had never been a single expression of resentment from a man who should have had every reason to hate Qrow's guts...

All these emotions came boiling up out of Qrow, consuming him completely to the point where he couldn't see or hear anything going on around him, and Ruby hadn't even said the words.

But she knew, she knew, she knew. Of all the things that caused Qrow to feel shame, and that was a list that stretched from here to the shattered moon, this—and how he'd handled it—was at the top.

He was spiraling out of control, up and away, worse and worse, and the only reason he hadn't spun out completely was because of a small sensation of pressure and warmth somewhere at his elbow.

He didn't know what it was. There was no way to tell, not with his eyes...

He couldn't even do the most basic things, but that checked, didn't it? He reached up with his off hand and wiped his face clean, or at least as clean as he could when his muscles weren't working as they should, and looked to his side.

Ruby had moved in to gently press against him, not enough to knock him off balance or impose, but just enough to ground him. He didn't know how she was doing that. It was miraculous.

"Ruby?" he croaked.

"It's okay," she was murmuring. "It's okay, promise."

"How can it be okay?" he said, his voice breaking as he spoke.

She looked up at him, with that face and those features and those eyes that reminded him so strongly of Summer he thought it must burn his brain. "Why wouldn't it be?" she asked. "Do you think this changes anything I already knew?"

"It's supposed to be Tai," he said, his face burning with shame. "He, he was always better at this, he could do it right, give you... A good home, a good parent, not... not whatever the hell I am. He was the good one, dad material down to his bones…"

"It's not a competition," Ruby said gently.

The train wreck that was his mind couldn't produce any more words. Where was the upset? Where was the outrage?

"Dad is a great dad," said Ruby. "He's not perfect, he made mistakes, but he's done a lot of what you wanted. I'm glad he's my dad."

"Then leave it there," said Qrow, and the pain he felt at those words told him that he was doing the right thing. "Let him be your dad, and forget what you saw in the Ever After."

"But I don't want to," she said, as if that was all there was to say.

Once again, he was reduced to brain-fried muteness. People weren't supposed to feel this much, they weren't made for it, this much emotion could kill a man.

"I'm glad I saw it," Ruby continued. "I had some guesses, of course, but I never had the courage to ask, and honestly I don't think you would have told me the truth. But I'm glad to know."

She smiled. She smiled, and he knew she was going to say it, knew she was going to destroy him and he could not stop it.

"I'm glad you're my father."

It was both everything he'd expected and nothing that he'd expected. "You're... glad? No, that can't be, that just can't be."

"Sure it is," said Ruby with no hint of guile.

This was a cruel trick she was playing, too cruel. "We just went over this," he said, leaning into his anger in the hopes that it would protect him. "You just said that Tai was a good dad and you liked that."

"Yeah, I did," she agreed, with not one iota of his anger reaching her.

It left him utterly disarmed. "Then... What...?"

"Well," she said, her smile turning brilliant, "this is Remnant. Who says I can't have a dad and a father?"

She said it like it was the simplest thing in the world, and yet it caused more wreckage to Qrow's train of thought then you get from the collision of two freight trains.

She kept talking, although the sound seemed like it was coming from klicks away. "I mean, I'm not exactly looking for reasons why people can't love me. Why would I tell people they can't love me? Why would I want fewer people to care for me and want good things for me? That's dumb."

Qrow made a noise that was half laugh, half sob, all pathetic. "People are dumb," he said.

"Yeah, I know," she said, in her face screwed up in embarrassment. "I'm learning that more and more as I go. It's kind of embarrassing, but also kind of not, because, like, people are doing their best, so I have to respect that, it's just their best is less than I ever thought it was… you know?"

He made the pathetic sound again. "Sorry to disappoint you so badly, pipsqueak."

Her smile was not like his. His hurt to make, and he was sure it hurt to look at, too. Her smile was a campfire on a chilly night. "The only thing that disappoints me is that I had to learn about this from the magic fairy tale dimension, and not from you."

It wasn't fair. She wasn't fair. How could she be making him feel like this? It wasn't right for him to feel like this, to feel this good, this loved, because it always always always meant that something bad was about to happen, and the dread of what was to come was almost enough to break him by itself.

"Of course," said Ruby, scrunching up her face in distaste, "the magic fairy tale dimension had to push Yang and Blake together too, so I guess it's not just you old folks, you know?"

He smiled against his will. He tried to reach for the good, practiced, safe humor of old jokes, and couldn't quite get there, not with all the rest of this roiling around inside of him.

Unfortunately, Ruby noticed this lack of response from him, and gave him a raised eyebrow. "Man, not even shooting that down anymore? You are getting old!"

"Maybe." It was the best he could do.

"Well," she said, and she gently leaned against him again, "it's okay for you to be old. Just like it's okay for you to be my father."

Hope was the deadliest emotion. He could barely allow himself to feel it, it was a baited trap, and yet... That's what made the trap so diabolical. That's why he fell for it. Because he wanted to feel that hope with every fiber of his soul.

"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice shaking like a leaf in the wind.

"I'm sure," she said, and reached an arm around to give him a hug.

Qrow swore that, if he died in that moment, he'd die happy.