Chapter 13: Smooth

"Girls be like 'I know a place' then take you to the lowest point of your life."

— 26 —

"Hey," Blake asked, looking up from her bed. "You ever get a weird thought?"

Jaune was cleaning his gun on the floor. Shirtlessly taking it apart and putting it back together, of course. "Yeah. Like, right now I'm wondering if I get sweaty armpits, would strapping tampon pads to them help me stay dry?"

Anyhow, that was how this entire thing started. And it was how Blake ended up riding the world's longest elevator at five past midnight. She twirled the pen through her fingers. One of the really nice ones Jaune had bought her for her birthday, right after claiming he totally didn't know her or anything. The single most thoughtful gift she'd ever gotten in her life.

It helped her focus on this and that, anything but what she was actually doing. Rote motions as she watched the lights of the lift slowly go up and up and up.

The CCTS tower was really tall. Even on the lift she was starting to get lightheaded. She sniffed to keep everything in her nose, and wasn't sure it was helping. That was another reason to twirl the pen faster and faster. Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it. We're just gonna hang out. It's not like a hidden midnight date or anything.

Twirl faster. Avoiding even entertaining that… idea? Fantasy? Whatever it was that wouldn't ever be.

Originally, Blake thought it'd be neat to surprise him. To just show up one night and be like "hi, hello, funny seeing you here" or something. Actually, no, she'd tried that. Crept out in the middle of the night and pressed the button to one of the top floors, then just stood there awkwardly. Pressing the button again and again as nothing happened.

Apparently, those floors were keyed to certain IDs. "Access control lists," Jaune called it when she asked about it, claiming she'd pressed the wrong button once in the lift and was surprised it didn't go up there.

She'd had to ask him to let her onto the list to visit him. She'd expected an embarrassing pause and a denial.

Instead, he'd shrugged and said something like "Ain't no SCIF, rules is poorly written, and there's a bit after midnight where the Joes go off to dinner." Which was apparently a kind of yes.

So here she was.

Waiting.

Watching buttons light up.

Feeling faint.

Maybe pads under the arms would be a good idea, now that she thought about it.

Ding.

Blake took a deep breath, hand to her breast. Feeling her heart. All kinds of weird chemicals inside her that, like, let's be real, she had no reason to feel. None at all. This was normal. Blake was just curious and couldn't sleep well lately. She was just up in the middle of the night to hang out alone with a boy who was her friend at work.

Perfectly normal. He'd made himself very clear to her. A couple of times.

But, y'know.

Ça ira.

She didn't know what to expect from a server room at the heart of a CCTS tower. She'd only been in the lower levels to make calls and get some information. Never so high up in the technological guts of Atlas' most famous invention.

A rush of cold air hit her all at once. She had too much bare skin and it prickled instantly. Blake could barely hear herself think over the constant whirring of electrical fans and motors. She hugged herself and stepped into the room, surprised she couldn't see her breath. She wondered if Jaune would actually be wearing a shirt.

Blake adjusted her hairbow. Before realizing if they were alone here, there was no reason to wear it. She pulled it off, shaking her hair loose, ears twitching. It felt liberating. Blake was simply Blake at the moment. She glanced at her reflection in a computer monitor and looked… like herself, she supposed.

Then she heard it. Or maybe she always heard it. Just, it was hard to make out over the fans. Her hearing adjusted to it, turning the whirring into a background sound, and was able to hear the music. Start and start, pluck and play—Jaune's guitar. And she tried to find him.

Shame she hadn't asked how to navigate this place. It was a warren of cliffs and valleys, filled with expensive electronic and radio equipment. Monitors and screens. Locked racks blowing hot air out of one side, some of which she stopped by to warm back up before continuing through the technological canyons. Blake sniffled again, keeping everything inside.

She found a set of desks and found herself transfixed, staring at winterized military combat jackets on coathangers or just over the back of chairs. Military workstations. In the corner, under a couple of locks she knew she could pick, was even an armory rack filled with rifles. This was where the Royal Army worked, but they were on a dinner break. Jaune didn't take midnight meals, which was why she had some time for herself.

Then she finally found the boy. He had his own desk, a bunch of space actually, near the windows looking out across the city of Vale. His legs were kicked up, mumbling lyrics as he worked on his guitar. And yes, he was wearing a jacket. She didn't know why but that annoyed her.

She listened, trying to figure out the song. But it was all strange to her. The only lyrics she could make out over the background fans were when he repeated "sugar, honey, ice, and tea." She couldn't place any of it. Until it finally hit her.

"That's not a song from our world, is it?" Blake asked.

Jaune jerked, inhaling sharply. He looked at her like a lost puppy, confused, before getting concerned. He set the guitar aside and went for her. "Blake, what happened?"

"Huh? Oh, I got lost along the way."

"No, not that." He took her hand, still friction-warm from the guitar, and led her to the desk. She didn't resist as he sat her down, just anxiously watching him.

He took out a box of tissues and patted her nose. It came away with a dot of blood.

"Oh!" she said, feeling hot in her chest. "Oh gods, that's—I'm sorry, this is just really high up in the air, and it's cold, and dry, and I haven't gotten much sleep and—"

He pushed the cloth into her hand and put it up to her own nose, before taking it away to make one of Shamrock's religious gestures. "Here, hold it there. I can't do anything else unless you want me to pick your nose."

"I'd rather you not, thanks," she said.

Jaune was still fussing over her, looking her over. "It's like a desert up here. Has to be for the equipment. Whoever built a server room in a tower and not the basement was clearly on coke. You okay?"

Blake smiled, keeping the tissue to her nose, watching Jaune. Feeling oddly safe. "Better now, thank you."

He stood back and sighed. "Lost track of the time. I were wasting it anyhow."

"What were you doing?"

Jaune looked over at his computer and touched a key, frowning. "Running a Christmas tree attack while no one's here to yell at me. Not a real one, you understand. I'm just firing on all ports to see what, if anything, gets through. So I can find the holes and plug 'em. It's making everything light up because they're being touched, thus the name."

"Oh, of course," she says blankly. "I understand all of that. Thank you for speaking with normal words normal people can understand."

He sat down, spinning around in his chair. "Ports are, like, just ways to connect to something. Protocols. Port twenty-two, for example, is what allows you to remotely log in to other systems. They use the same login and password for everything in the network, so I can log in easily and touch stuff as an admin, if needed. So I'm seeing what ports do what when an outside connection tries to do something with them through the firewall. Disable any of them that respond and do anything that we don't otherwise use. It's network security basics."

"Uh-huh," Blake said, really trying to understand him, and failing. "So breaking your stuff to make sure it works is, like, what you do here all night?"

Jaune shook his head. "Sometimes. Humans are always the weakest part of infosec. We're in the middle of some big program to overhaul the network infrastructure. There's actually lots of server rooms and comms closets about Beacon. Sometimes they're for the students. Usually they're just more space for the CCTS network. Pretty sure maintaining them is part of some funding scheme for the school. So sometimes I'm out there hauling routers to replace them, copypasta some configs, get them on the network."

"Ah, I think I get that!" Blake said, cat ears perking up. "So you're going to upgrade the computers in the library? They're super loud and really hot."

He squinted. "What? No. Why would—" His face fell and he slammed his palm on the desk. "God, fuck! I keep forgetting I'm using the library to mine crypto. Shit. I really need to fix that. I did that shit back when I was drunk."

Blake laughed. "Gods, Jaune, how can you be so smart and yet so stupid at the same time?"

"No brain, head empty," he said, making rolling motions with his hands by his ears. "Just a tunnel. It fuckin wimdy."

"Wimmmd," she intoned, voice blank.

They looked at each other, his eyes meeting hers. And then they both burst out giggling.

"Jesus, forgot about that one," he said, leaning back in his chair.

"Yeah, you messed with my head." Blake sighed, getting control of herself. "Your slang just infects me, y'know?"

"Do they make brain condoms?"

She made a show of thinking it over. "I think you and I are well past the point of protection. I'm ruined. Used goods."

"Don't tell me you developed a latex allergy now." He snerked.

"I think it's more like bee stings. Y'know, you get enough of them, you can get an allergic reaction."

"Happened to my grandma, actually."

"Mm, I bet. And how many kids did she have now?"

"Four. Three survived to adulthood."

She blinked. "Oh, I'm sorry."

He shrugged.

"Is that common where you're from?" she asked cautiously.

"Hm?"

Blake gestured vaguely. "Children dying." She rubbed her shoulder. "It's a problem sometimes back in Menagerie. It's a hot jungle. Mosquitos and disease can get pretty bad. Aren't many doctors, so if you get sick, sometimes that's it. Some of the earliest work on the White Fang back there was just to build schools and hospitals. To help with all the refugees flocking to the island."

Jaune didn't respond at once. He just watched the way she rubbed her exposed skin. A moment later he was putting his jacket over her shoulder. It smelled of Jaune, some cologne and distant cigarettes. She helped him put it on and cinched it tight.

"You look cold."

"You don't like talking about it, do you?" she asked.

"Hmm?" he hummed, standing in front of her. When he tried to step away, she grabbed his wrist. "I'm—sorry, I guess. If it bothers you, I won't ask. It's just you, y'know? I feel I know so little about you you. And you know pretty much everything about me. But I don't know where you came from, save some weird soul magic stuff that I guess I never fully processed because it's just so insane."

"It's not terribly interesting," he said quietly. "I use the knowledge. I make use of the experience. Doesn't always line up here. My IT knowledge is functional, my habits and practices are defs better than the locals, but my terms are often all-wrong. And that's something I was trained hard in. It's like that for a lot of things. It's…"

He shifted uncomfortably. "It makes me angry. I've coped with myself in the past tense. The human aspect I've come to terms with. It's everything else that makes me see red, and I much prefer la vie en rose than actually examining them things with a fine comb."

"Can I still ask about it?"

He smiles sadly. "Worst sin a man can commit is boring a girl, Blake."

Which made Blake think. She didn't want to ask an obvious question, no matter how curious. Stuff about him himself, exactly. There were so many obvious ones. Once, she'd read a love story about a man who fell out of the past, and the woman who found him had to teach the boy how to behave in modern society, while he still kept a lot of his charming old-fashioned sentiments. There were whole chapters just asking questions, comparing worlds, but it was one of the few scenes that didn't hold up on a re-read. Felt like a compare and contrast essay with dialog tags. If this wasn't Jaune's first alternate universe, that was probably why he felt this way. So she had to be creative and interesting. Show Jaune that she was really paying attention; that she cared, in a way.

She realized she was still holding onto him, and elected not to let go. "How do they dance where you're from?"

Jaune blinked, taken completely off-guard. It felt viscerally satisfying to see, and she tried not to smirk like a total bitch. "Depends," he said. "There's a lot of them."

"Show me?"

Jaune stared. He made a motion towards her, then stopped. Just kind of stood there. Blake pretended not to notice, just looking at him with perfectly normal curiosity. He had this kind of nervous caution she didn't think she'd ever seen from the boy before. It was kind of…

She rolled her eyes and grabbed his other hand. It helped bite down her smile. "It's a two-person dance, right? C'mon!"

Jaune just stared, before looking up to the sky and mouthing something. She waited as the movements turned to sound. He was trying to recount a tune, bobbing his head to it. And y'know what? She joined him. Blake hummed along with him, trying to find the rhythm. She felt so stupid, but screw it. Jaune was singing the dancing song and she was his backup voice.

Then she gasped as he put his palm on her back, holding out her other hand as if pointing to something. She let herself go loose in his arms as he led her, guiding her. Blake used her body more than her mind, watching his feet and stepping away in rhythm, push and pull, step and step, back and forth. All the while she made noises to go along with him as he sang.

It was an elegant dance with the man leading it. As far as she could tell, her only job was to look good and avoid getting stepped on. She had legwork over his, if nothing more. They moved around in circles, and she pretended to know what he was singing. Making up words in her own mind to go along with him as the broken moonlight flittered down on them through the windows.

Until he pulled her arm up and spun her around. She kept her balance, twirling as he commanded. Her back to him, he pulled her in close. His hands slid down to her waist, and she tried not to shiver—until he picked her up and held her in the air.

"Whoa!" she said, flailing her arms, instinctively trying to right herself.

Jaune scrambled to get a better angle on her. Right as she fell down atop him, and the two of them collapsed into a jumbled pile of limbs on the floor together.

Blake looked around, trying to figure out where her hands and feet were. At least no one was grabbing anything. They were just kind of stuck together. Her face was pressed against the ground next to his. They looked at each other and just laughed.

"Stop, stop, don't laugh," he said. "It's tradition for all dances on my world to end in collapse and humiliation. You dare mock my culture!"

"Sure, I'll believe that," she said, propping herself up on her elbow.

Jaune sat up. "No, it's true. But we're making our own tradition, you and I. We'll have plenty of time to practice getting the ending wrong!"

She cocked an eyebrow. "Will we now?"

He let out a long breath. "I mean, you will be dancing with me during homecoming or whatever it is, right? Coco and I got through some things recently and so we got the music and theme on point. You and me, Blake."

Her heart fluttered, but her ears drooped. "Coco?"

"Look," he said seriously, "figured the ground like this was the best time to ask."

"Not Coco or someone else? I think Weiss is a trained dancer, too."

Jaune frowned, confused. "Like I could trust them with something like this. You, I do."

"So, that means we'll have to practice more to make sure we fail only the best?"

"Yeah, y'know." He ran his hand through his hair. "If you're cool with that. You and I, like, we ain't hung out much lately. Since, whatever. Even your birthday party I had to force."

Blake sighed. "That's more, like… I did want to spend more time with you. You were just busy, or our schedules didn't work out."

He gave her a dubious look. "My schedule's always been open to you. I'm just one DM away. What have you been up to?"

"Ugh," she said. "Coordinating with Velvet. And reading. There's a very important new book out!"

"Reading smutty fanfiction is not a book, Blake."

"Hey!" she said, pushing him away. He let himself rock and fall back to the ground, and was just staring up at her smugly. "Shut up."

"We're friends, Blake. Partners. Always will be. I can't let you be seen with some other loser at the dance. It'd ruin your reputation."

She scoffed. "What reputation?"

He held a hand to his breast. "What if people saw you with someone else and thought you had friends? You're a gourmet introvert, Blake."

Blake had no face. She just rolled her eyes, leaning back against the workstation desk. "It's amazing. I feel like you know exactly what you're supposed to say, and you choose not to. Consistently."

He winked. "It's a gift, I know."

She sighed, looking around the servers. "Maybe if we do practice again, let's not do it here. It's weird and buzzy."

"Sweet! That's a solid yes!"

"Silly me, how could I forget?" Blake said, slumping. She fell back onto the floor, lying inches across from Jaune, and a part of her just wanted to reach out. To poke and touch him or something. She just wanted to, alright? "I can't say maybe around you anymore."

Jaune pouted.

"Look," she said. "I think I know a place."

His eyes widened with excitement. "The rooftop!"

She squinted. "What?"

"Of the dorms," he said eagerly, like a little puppy. "Where we used to talk all the time. Up there, alone, together. Remember? Where I took your hand and we jumped off together."

Blake… shifted uncomfortably. Something in her bloodstream went cold. That wasn't what she had in mind, but he just looked so boyishly happy with the idea. In a way that was hard to say no to.

"I don't know," she said, trying to rub her arm. Her fingernails scratched at Jaune's jacket, which she still wore. "I don't want to just be glowing Aura like a Long Night light up there to stay warm. I don't have much warm clothing."

He thinks. "Hmm, I guess booty shorts aren't winter clothing, yeah. Maybe a puffy dress or skirt? Borrow something from Weiss or Ruby."

"Ugh," she said. "I still don't get how they run around in skirts. They're so weird. It's like, 'I love my skirt, whoops, here's my ass.'" She momentarily arches her back, jutting her hips upwards. "Haven't worn a dress in a while, though."

"Let's get one together," he said. "A dress, I mean. I'll take you shopping. We can find something you like and I can tell you how good it fits you."

"Out in Vale? It's weird out there. So many soldiers and… can you even afford to buy a nice dress?"

"I got a deal with this Army officer in charge here named Sousan: I'm actually getting paid for my time here nowadays since it's no longer legally an abstract form of detention."

She pulled her pen out. "Do you even have any money left after this?"

His expression was blank. "I'm… sure Weiss wouldn't mind if we combined our grocery money for a dress."

"Wait, you have a joint account?"

"We pool money to buy stuff sometimes," he said with a shrug. "Y'know she says she has a job now?"

"I think she and Shamrock mentioned it. I even saw them in uniform once when you made us breakfast. I thought it was a cover for her gambling or something."

"No, it's totes legit! Cardin and I stopped by the coffee shop on campus after gym day one morning and Weiss waited our table."

"How'd she do?"

"She stabbed Cardin with a pen but he said his girlfriend penetrated him worse."

"Someone's actually dating him?" Blake stuck out her tongue in disgust.

"I wouldn't exactly say 'dating' but he been hanging out with his weird chica from Atlas," Jaune said, shrugging awkwardly. "On and off for a few months now whenever she's around. Sorta my fault they met."

Blake tilted her head questioningly.

"You remember that day I took us all to the sushi place? All us teams was doing some community outreach stuff in town that day. He saw us after you threw a fish at some boy."

"Oh. Crap, I remember that day. It was so stupid."

He smiled dreamily. "Still the first day we ever did anything as a team, however stupid. Together. Meant something to me."

Blake's cheeks felt hot suddenly.

"Anyhow he saw us, and then I waved him off. He thought I was trying to show him something cool and wandered off with his team and met this girl and." He paused, gritting his teeth.

"Have you actually met her? I'm having trouble believing any woman would ever be consensually near him."

Jaune sucked in a breath. "I mean, she did briefly hospitalize him but she's better for him than the internet women he likes. The kind that stream themselves playing video games, barely clothed, and say your name if you donate money to them."

Blake sneered. "Ew."

"Look, don't hold it against him. It was all my fault he even learned about them."

"Wait, you watch those?"

"What am I, stupid?"

She gave him an even expression.

"I don't do parasocial relations. Too freaky. At least not anymore. When I, like…" He gestured helplessly. "First got here, I got alerts for the streams on my scroll. Took me forever to delete the apps."

"Uh-huh."

"Look, I'm serious. Here." Jaune got up quickly, and Blake groaned. She didn't want to follow him. She just wanted to, like, lay here and talk. Waste the night away being stupid and unproductive.

Still, she followed him to his computer, looking around his back as he leaned over and typed.

"See, Blake?" he said, pointing. "No hits for any streaming sites. I don't use them. I actually blocked their IPs from official government computers just to screw with one of my coworkers, Lance Sergeant Ozrick."

There was that name again, Ozrick. She almost wanted to ask after him. To see if he really was the same soldier she'd met years ago. He and Colonel Kornilov's First Cavalry helped exterminate an entire village out on the frontier. That was a distraction, however. And it dredged up uncomfortable implications that the same soldiers of the same unit, under the same commander, were now actively on Valean streets. Kornilov the torturer and some faunus patsy colonel, like so many other faunus serving in the Royal Army.

She knew from the Humming Lady back in Montluçon that the White Fang, and Adam especially, were active in Vale city. It was only a matter of time before they found each other. And that would be a bloody day.

One she didn't think she had any power to influence.

It was why she really didn't want to go out on town and go dress shopping.

She blinked hard. Jaune was looking at her with concern.

"Uh," she said. "This doesn't prove anything. This is your work computer. Why would no links here mean anything for your scroll?"

Jaune puffed out his cheek. "Oh. Yeah. I guess. My scroll doesn't always work up here lately. I usually text from here." He clicked through tabs. "Same app we use to text, I can use from up here. I have lowside—non-secret internet, I mean. And since the idiots let me admin my own networks, I can control what sites I use. So I mostly just use my terminal here to do stuff."

"So you're using the center of Vale's internet to, what, waste time?"

"Those hour-long video essays about fandom drama and video games I've never heard of won't watch themselves, Blake," he said with an offended hand to his breast.

Someone tapped on the ground. Blake inhaled sharply as she spun around, expecting to see heavily armed soldiers with weapons aimed at her. Instead, leaning on his cane, there stood Headmaster Ozpin. She stared up at him, up and up, and felt so very small under his calmly disappointed eyes.

She'd only ever really talked to him once. Him assigning her, condemning her, to help plan the big dance night with Velvet didn't count. What did count was right before Montluçon, where he'd tried to get her to tell him about how horrible Jaune was. Fishing for information on how to discredit the boy, throw him under the bus, and just prevent him from being a person. And seeing him here? It was like she didn't belong here. She didn't belong anywhere. Least of all before this man.

Blake touched Jaune's shoulder without thinking about it. She thought he'd be the same. Instead, he had this look of dull anger. Respectfully contained hostility.

"You're not supposed to be entertaining guests, Mr. Arc," Ozpin said, adjusting his glasses. "Shouldn't you be on the network backbone project? That lieutenant seemed so adamant you'd be too helpful to let go."

"What are you doing here?" Jaune asked with a sneer.

Ozpin continued leaning on his cane. "Funny you should ask. I was working late in the office when someone was using my elevator to go upwards. The soldiers were on break, and you don't usually leave. I thought it prudent to check on you. And here I see myself astounded at how good you are at wasting time."

"Wow," he said. "Amazing how you can clap for me without using your hands."

Ozpin's expression tightened. "We are under time constraints, Mr. Arc."

"Yeah, yeah. But what do you expect? This entire overworked and undersexed shop does literally everything: architecture, infrastructure, install. I'm building an entire WAN solo. I'm waiting for the new routers to arrive before I start carrying things around."

"This isn't from me, don't misunderstand. This is a directive from Damescrown, to remove all traces of Atlas' work from our system. Get it done and now before we have Prime Minister LaChance himself breathing down my neck more than he already is."

Blake felt she was in the crossfire of something deadly. All she could do was freeze, looking between the two. The more they talked, the less anything seemed to do with her. She almost felt like she could slink away and Ozpin wouldn't even notice her.

Jaune scoffed. "Cool. Won't happen, but cool. Make all the demands you want, but you're not spending your weeknights here. I only have so much time."

Ozpin stared for a very long time. "I'll talk to Sousan. You have a couple of days off in a couple weeks you'll simply have to come in."

"I have like two nights off for the school dance," he said. "Y'know, the one you assigned me and Coco to help organize. You actually think I'm gonna come in instead of seeing the fruits of my labor? Between me, my entire team, and Team CVFY?"

The Headmaster held his cane with both hands. "I don't recall giving you a choice."

Blake's eyes went wide. "What? No, but you can't—no, no, you—"

He tapped his cane sharply. "Ah yes, Ms. Belladonna. I nearly forgot about you. How is your father doing these days?"

She stood up sharper. "What's that mean?"

"You called home recently, correct? I saw it on the call logs. Very long distance. Students typically may call home discounted or even freely. With all the woes we've been having, all these network delays Mr. Arc surely knows about, it would be terrible if we had to charge full price to call home. It can get out of pocket quite quickly."

Blake just stared, trying to figure out if she was being threatened. And if so, why? Most of all, she wanted to know why he was meeting Jaune's eyes when he said that.

Jaune sat down in his chair. "I'll work something out. Talk to the LT and whatever. Sir."

Ozpin nodded. "Ms. Belladonna, it is terribly late. You should go home."

She shook her head. "No, that's okay. I needed to, uh…"

He walked up and put his hand on her shoulder. "I understand, it can be terribly confusing to navigate these rooms. Here, let me show you the way out."

Blake took one last look at Jaune, and saw the naked distrust and congealing hatred in his blue eyes. Still, he nodded at her. It'll be okay, his face said. Ozpin gave her a little push, and she moved forwards.

He stayed behind her the entire way. She could see his tall shadow looming past her, cast a dozen different ways from the LEDs off the machine racks. It devoured her own shadow. Blake remembered she wasn't wearing her bow, her faunus ears were out, and it was the least of her possible concerns. She didn't know why she felt this… this anxious feeling that made her look everywhere for anywhere to run, any ally to take, any escape route up the equipment or anything just to get away from the man walking her out.

Blake kept expecting a lecture. For him to admonish her for something. To explain himself. But he remained silent.

Until they reached the elevator.

Headmaster Ozpin stood there expectantly.

"I can't go down," she said, just trusting her gut. "I can't go up or down without someone with the right ID."

He frowned at her. He didn't believe her. But she didn't wince or look away. He stepped forwards, still behind her, shepherding her into the elevator. He scanned his ID.

"This floor," she said quickly, touching the close door button. "Whoops. Silly me. I mean the first floor, here. Sorry, Headmaster."

Ozpin looked at her sharply as the doors closed behind her. Locking him inside and away from Jaune. And she slowly descended to the ground.

She pressed herself against the far wall, and he stood there. Looming. Leaning on his cane in silence. The more she looked up close, the more he looked off. His suit wasn't as nicely pressed as she was sure it should be. There were creases around the edges of his eyes like he hadn't slept in days. He regarded her mildly, an annoying gnat of little to no concern before she locked him in the lift with her.

"Jaune didn't do anything wrong," Blake said quickly. "I, I pressed him. I couldn't sleep and wanted to visit. It's my fault. He didn't have a choice."

The man looked down his nose at her, silent. The lift hummed. The speakers were playing a weirdly corporate, elevator-y rendition of Open Ground All Around, a usually upbeat salsa type party song about a team of Huntsman fighting and dying to the last to save a city from the Grimm.

The tube was narrow. Were the walls always this close to her? How far away was the Headmaster standing? He hadn't gotten closer, had he? No, he hadn't moved. Hadn't made a face. Blake felt damp, and suddenly wondered if maybe Jaune was onto something with the idea to use tampon pads to soak sweat up.

"D-don't look at me like that," she said, suddenly out of breath. "And don't look at Jaune like that, either!"

"You all went through something hard and terrible," the Headmaster said, with the kind of fake empathy an overbooked therapist might use. "You should take some time for yourself. Enjoy the school dance you and Velvet have been working on."

"Oh yeah, the one he can't go to!"

He frowned. "Your team leader has the awful habit of making him needful to people he shouldn't have."

"So?!" she snapped, pressing her back against the wall.

"He dug this grave. It's beyond anyone's control at this point. I'm merely delivering the harsh news someone has to. I'm not the bad guy."

"What does that even mean, huh? Huh?"

The door dinged and opened. Past Ozpin is the wide open lobby, with so much air, so empty and free.

"Ladies first," he said, stepping to the side.

"I'm not a lady; I'm a Huntress!" she said defiantly.

He said nothing, looking unimpressed.

"After you, sir," she said, jutting her chin to the door.

Very slowly the man stepped outside of the lift, watching her. And Blake just ran past him. Into the air. The cool air. The inviting air. Towards the door.

Only to stop to look over her shoulder.

At the man standing there, watching her.

She wanted to run. She wanted to stare back at him. Refusing to budge with the same nerves that tell her she didn't want to be there.

Until he eventually headed back inside.

Blake followed after the doors had closed, watching the floor icon. Counting them up and up and up. It paused on Jaune's floor, with the servers. Blake rubbed the sweat off her brow. And then breathed out as it went up to the top, to his office.

She leaned against the door, breathing. And didn't know why. Why she felt this. Why anything.

Her pocket buzzed.

The Boy: :p

You: :angry:

The Boy: Get some sleep. I'll try to come back early. Looks like I got a busy couple weeks

You: You sure you're good?

The Boy: Wait up for me like a saltwife if you want

The Boy: But I'd feel bad if I stole any more of your sleep

You: That's fine I like seeing you suffer

The Boy: :heartbroken:

And that was it. Blake slid down to the floor.

Until she found the effort to get up and go to her room, and wait the night to make sure Jaune was actually okay in the flesh.