CW for alcoholism, because Willow POV
Willow couldn't stop shaking. They'd stopped running after less than a minute—she was panting too hard to speak, and the air smelled of smoke.
"We can't go back the same way," the faunus girl was saying, having just returned from checking the hallway ahead of them. "Someone set a fire at the door."
"Which means there's more than just the two of them," finished the blonde.
She felt sick. A drink could settle the trembling, enough for her to walk right—but they were trapped in an empty conference room.
"The two of you were supposed to be able to get us out!" Jacques hissed. "Or was leaving us here to die always her plan?"
"Let's make one thing really clear," snapped the blonde. "You don't talk. At all. I'm not above punching you to make that happen."
He clenched his jaw, lips pressing thin and white. Bloodless. Willow stepped in front of him, grabbing his arm just above the elbow. He shrugged her off.
Klein cleared his throat. "There's a hidden exit in the library. I can lead us there."
The faunus girl nodded to him. "Thank you."
"A hidden—" Jacques blurted. The blonde turned to glare at him, hair shimmering with flame, eyes flashing scarlet. He went silent. Willow flinched back and knocked into Klein. The girl blinked, and the light dimmed.
"Come on," she said, more softly this time. "Let's get you guys out of here."
Another dark hallway. The blonde stuck to the rear of their little group, holding up her scroll, which barely lit the path directly ahead of them. The faunus girl walked in front, turning her head to peer into every shadow-choked intersection they passed. Her eyes trapped the light and reflected it back tenfold.
"Pardon me," Willow whispered, "Miss... do you know how well your teammate can see?"
The blonde stared at her. "You seriously don't even know our names."
She had, while they were in the news, but she'd forgotten them. Then she'd meant to look them up, and... somehow it had never happened. Her throat went tight.
A sigh. "I'm Yang. She's Blake. My sister is Ruby." She twisted to check behind them with the light. Jacques made a noise in the back of his throat when the hall in front of them went dark. The—Blake, didn't react at all.
Willow hugged her arms around herself. "Do you know how well Blake can see?"
"I know she can read in the middle of the night with the lights off. If you want something more specific, you'll have to ask her."
It helped her trembling, a little. Not as much as she'd hoped. Finding comfort in that eerie yellow glow was difficult. It wasn't—she'd never had trouble with Weiss. Her daughter had always been easy to love and trust. Blake was... different. She didn't know why, and the question sat uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach.
Blake entered the library first. She returned a moment later, gesturing for them to follow, and Willow almost managed to stop trembling. The smell of books was reassuring. Klein made a beeline for the far end of the room, gesturing towards a bookshelf that Willow distantly remembered pappa pointing out to her.
"Okay," Yang said in a hushed voice. "We'll get the three of you to the end of the tunnel and—"
A cry of pain pierced the air—loud and sudden, and then cut short. Yang whirled around, her fists clenching. "Ruby!"
Willow's heart skipped. "Weiss," she gasped. She didn't have enough breath to shout the way Yang had.
"That sounded close," said Blake. "Keep going, I'll find her."
Yang looked like she hated that idea even more than Willow did. She glanced over her shoulder at them, grimaced, and said, "Be safe." Blake dissolved into shadow.
Klein rummaged at one of the bookshelves until it swung open. Yang beckoned them all through ahead of her. Jacques and Klein disappeared into the tunnel, but Willow couldn't seem to move. A distant explosion sounded from far above them. Had that been Blake and Ruby, fighting one of the arsonists? Had it been Weiss, chased through her own home, or Whitley alone and defenseless? Both of them together?
The thought made Willow violently ill. Yet here she stood, too overcome by panic even to flee the building.
Yang sighed. She put an arm around Willow's shoulders to guide her into the passage. The gentleness of the gesture shocked her—it seemed so out of place from this towering woman, all muscle and fire. She missed the warm hand the moment it retreated.
"Thank you," she murmured.
"It's our job." The secret passage was dark and cramped. It was impossible to see Yang's face while walking in single file, but her tone was enough to make Willow wince.
"I know we haven't... we've made mistakes with her."
Yang snorted.
"But we love her. More than anything."
"You might."
Willow was suddenly glad she couldn't look this woman in the eyes. "I do. With all my heart, I—"
"Alright."
The dismissal crushed the breath from her lungs. Of course it didn't matter. When had anything she did ever mattered?
Another sigh. "Look, it's nice that you care. But she's never going to feel like you do if you keep making her chase you. If she has to put up with him to have you in her life... I'm sorry, but you're probably not going to see her again."
Running footsteps cut off any reply Willow might have made. They all whirled around, but it wasn't an attacker—it was Blake, struggling to squeeze down the narrow passageway with Ruby limp in her arms. Yang lurched forward.
"She's okay." Blake handed Ruby to her sister. "I doubt she'll feel great when she wakes up, but her breathing is steady and I didn't find any serious injuries."
"Weiss?"
Blake shook her head helplessly. "I don't know where she went. Ruby was right outside the auditorium where she went looking for her brother, but there wasn't anyone in there."
"Oh, god." Willow hugged her arms around her middle, feeling like her chest might cave in.
Yang patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. "That's a good sign. It means she probably found him, at least."
The tunnel ended soon after that. Willow crammed herself against the wall to let Blake squeeze past her, so she could check outside before they left. She was back in seconds.
"We're past most of them, I think," she whispered. "And there are a few airships circling around. We could try to flag one down, but there are still some people out on the lawn. It looks like they've been setting fires."
Yang knelt to lay her sister gently on the floor. "I'll go catch their attention. You stay here in case one of them finds the tunnel."
"What?" Jacques blurted. "You can't leave me alone with that..."
Yang walked out without even looking at him. He trailed off. Blake watched him for a moment, one eyebrow slightly raised. Then she tossed her scroll to Klein and gestured down the other end of the passage. "Let me know if you see anyone coming from that direction."
Her husband subsided against the wall beside her, running a hand fretfully through his hair. "This is ridiculous," he muttered. "I have to speak to James about this... this travesty. Our family should have proper military protection. More than those half-wits he gave us—I haven't seen hide nor hair of any of them since this mess started! Though I can't imagine it'd do much good, when his Ace Operatives can't even defend a shipping center from a pair of deranged mongrels."
Willow stared at him for a long moment. Something about his rumpled hair made him seem... more tangible, somehow. Shouts sounded from outside. Blake tensed, and Jacques flinched and pressed himself flatter against the wall. The noise faded. She relaxed, but he didn't. Willow laid a hand on his arm. "It'll be alright. Weiss must have found Whitley by now, and—"
He knocked her away. "If she isn't too busy having a friendly chat with Taurus."
"What? Darling, you know she would never!"
"It would hardly be the first time. She said as much during his trial."
"How could you think—he's her brother!"
"Oh, please," he sneered. "You don't seriously expect me to believe that. Even she doesn't believe that. Why don't you go back to drinking yourself to death and spare me the—"
A hand came down on his shoulder. He jumped, tried to whirl around—but Blake didn't let go, and he couldn't move her an inch.
"Get your filthy hands off me! I'll be speaking to the council about this!"
"Go ahead. But right now, you need our help if you want to live long enough to complain. So you're not going to talk to her, or me, or anyone else like that. Is that understood?"
His face went scarlet. He spluttered for a moment, then closed his mouth.
"It's alright!" Willow put herself between them, her heart in her throat.
Blake stared at her. Willow had never felt so scrutinized in her life—her mouth went dry, and she struggled to swallow. "You don't need to defend him."
Before Willow could reply, gunfire sounded outside, and Blake's attention snapped back to the entrance. Willow couldn't have said why she followed her, creeping away from Jacques and Klein and the unconscious Ruby to crouch in the shadows with this stranger. "He's—we're all frightened, that's all." It was important that she understood this.
"That's not how you treat someone you love," said Blake, without looking away from the tunnel entrance. "Even when you're scared."
"He's my husband. Marriage is different. When you're young and it's all new, and everything feels perfect, it's easy to talk about loving someone unconditionally. Really committing to it is... it's the hardest thing there is."
Blake glanced at her, brow furrowed. Willow felt suddenly absurd. They were in the middle of an attack, why on Remnant did it matter so much what her daughter's girlfriend thought about her marriage?
"I don't believe in that anymore."
Willow did a double take. "Pardon?"
"I used to think loving someone was about being willing to go through anything for them. But being treated like that isn't normal, and there's a difference between problems you can work through and abuse. Why is it your responsibility to fight for a relationship that's making you miserable?"
He loved me, she might have said. I know he did. But that wasn't the point, was it?
The noise from outside faded. Willow heard running footsteps and flinched away from the entrance, huddling against the wall beside Klein. "An airship's coming down!" Yang shouted. "Everybody out!"
They emerged into the gale whipped up by the airship overhead, snapping at their clothes. Uniformed soldiers reached their hands out. Jacques went first, shouldering between her and Yang. She'd picked up her sister again, and was in the middle of handing her up into the ship when Klein gasped, "My word!"
Willow looked up at the roof of the manor just in time to watch them fall. The fire licking at the walls below them illuminated the sudden drop, the way they twisted in midair with the force of the jump. Her world tunneled to a single point. She didn't see the soldiers reaching for her, didn't hear Jacques snap, "Hurry up!" or feel Klein's arm where she grabbed him hard enough to bruise. For an instant, she beheld the end of the world in perfect clarity.
And then, Weiss' wings opened.
She was clumsy. Falling more than flying at first, just like a fledgling bird tumbling from the nest. But she carried them all the way to the edge of the cliff and beyond—far away from anyone who might do them harm.
"They're okay," said Yang, squeezing her shoulder. "They're out. Everyone's okay."
The panic in her voice made Willow realize she'd burst into tears. Her chest heaved for air that wasn't there, and Klein had to grip her by the elbow to steady her. "It's alright, madam," he said. "Just reach up now."
Blake hopped into the ship ahead of her, taking her hand and lifting her aboard without so much as a grunt. Willow collapsed against the wall. On the opposite side, Yang knelt down and gathered her sister into her lap. She groaned and cracked an eye open.
"Hey," Yang said shakily. "How are you feeling?"
"...Ow."
Yang laughed and rested their foreheads together. "Good to have you back, dork."
"Heh, thanks. But seriously, ow. What am I sitting on?" Ruby rolled onto her back and pulled a yellow pendant from her pocket.
"Uh, you didn't raid Weiss' jewelry box, did you?"
"No?" She squinted at it for a moment. "I think Cinder put it there?"
"What? That is so creepy, why is she leaving you gifts—"
Near the pilot's chair, Jacques was already rattling off orders—which Blake interrupted by saying, "We're finding where they landed first. Can you take us down to Mantle?"
Willow let it all crash over her like a wave. She wrapped her arms around herself and sobbed like a little girl, and wished she could believe that even a tiny part of it was relief.
Klein sat down beside her. "Is everything alright?" Her sobs turned into a peal of horrified laughter. How was she supposed to answer that? Two of my children would be dead right now if Weiss had done what we wanted. What I wanted. All because she'd thought it would heal something that broke a long time ago.
"I think my marriage just ended, and I don't know how to tell him."
"Ah. Well... I'd say that there's no wrong way to go about it, so long as you're honest."
It was exactly the same advice pappa gave her for telling Jacques she loved him. Willow began to feel somewhat hysterical, and took several deep breaths.
"It'll be alright, miss," Klein said softly.
And it would. She had to believe that, or she would never find the will to follow this through. All she had to do was... was find a time to speak with him, after this was over, and explain her concerns. She would tell him their relationship was affecting the children. She would tell him she couldn't see him anymore unless he mended his relationship with all of them. She would be clear, firm, but calm.
The door to Jacques' office in the new penthouse ricocheted off the wall with a bang, leaving a gaping hole in the drywall.
He surged to his feet at Willow's abrupt entrance, his face already scarlet with fury. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
"I want a divorce."
"What?"
Willow hadn't been angry in a very long time. It was dizzying—invigorating—terrifying. Breathing hard, she jabbed a finger at Jacques and spat, "I heard you. On the news. You... you..."
He fumbled for his scroll. "On the—what are you—" A headline finally registered. The color drained from him all at once, leaving a pale shadow of the man she'd been willing to give anything for. And then... then the real thing bled through. His face twisted into a scowl. "Weiss."
"You're going to sign the paperwork now. I had Klein bring it to me—you're going to sign it, and then you're going to get a hotel. I don't want to look at you right now."
"This is—this is a trick!" He gestured wildly at the scroll, as though it was at fault. "You can't honestly believe—" The sight of him then, puffed up and affronted like he had been wronged... it made her so incandescently furious that she fancied herself possessed—perhaps by the spirit of her daughters. There was a ringing in her ears that drowned out the sound of footsteps in the hall.
"You hit my little girl!" She snatched an umbrella out of the stand by the door and lobbed it at his head. He ducked behind the desk with an indignant cry. "You left my son to die!" This time she seized the whole stand in both hands. It left a dent in the surface of his desk and pelted him with umbrellas. "Just say it! Say it, you coward. Tell me what I was to you!"
Jacques straightened up. He was still red-faced, panting, struggling to smooth his disheveled hair and rumpled suit. His eyes narrowed. "Fine. I had the skill. I needed money to start with, and some legitimacy with the old elite. I wanted a Marigold, but they were all married already."
"...Get out."
He scoffed. "I paid for this apartment."
Willow slammed a palm into the wall, and light erupted. It had been a long time—she hadn't realized she still knew how. The Boarbatusk appeared behind her, tusks looming over her shoulders. "Get. Out!"
Jacques fled the room.
Her breathing was very loud in his absence. She stared past the vacated desk, unseeing, for several long seconds before she realized she was looking at the family portrait. One of the few paintings that had survived the fire. There was Winter, rigid and unsmiling. Weiss, human and alone. Whitley, playing along, desperate to please.
Herself. The blank, empty fool.
Willow attacked it with his letter opener, slashing through his self-satisfied smile. After that there was nothing to do except keep going, until the canvas hung in tatters from its frame and her face was covered in tears and snot. She turned her attention to his desk next, his collection of expensive knickknacks and his portraits of himself, and then to his bookshelves and his drawers and... and then she found a bottle of scotch. She collapsed on the carpet amidst the wood splinters and shards of glass and torn scraps of paper, and downed a whole glass in one swallow.
In the quiet that followed, Willow heard footsteps. They slowed as they approached the ruined office. Then, cautiously, Whitley poked his head around the doorframe.
"Is he gone?"
She'd wrecked her throat too much to speak, so she nodded and had another sip of scotch directly from the bottle.
Whitley picked his way through the mess. He crouched down next to her and put his arms around her shoulders. "Klein's making hot chocolate."
Willow didn't want hot chocolate. She wanted to drink the rest of her ex-husband's scotch, and then maybe she'd raid the liquor cabinet, because she wasn't ready to feel the twenty-five years she'd wasted in love with a lie.
Whitley's arms were still wrapped around her. Weiss didn't like to hug her anymore. Willow might be a fool, but she'd noticed that much.
"Okay," she whispered, and followed her son into the kitchen.