The Great Detective

"Sooooooooooo. Didja leaaaarrn anything?"

Pyrrha leaned back as far as she could in her seat, her eyes wide, trying in vain to escape Nora's incursion into her personal space. "I... didn't bring it up. It would have been rude to ask, when it was the first time I've seen Blake since..."

Nora dramatically flopped backwards, barely sticking the landing on the nearby couch. "Pyrrha! As long as you aren't doing your duties, this investigation is going nowhere!"

Pyrrha looked down at the maps she'd been trying to review, abashed. "Sorry, I-"

"They're up to something! It's obvious!" Nora sprung upwards, bouncing on the couch as she lifted a finger upwards. "Blake 'disappears', but then she just pops up again a few weeks later, and their whole team is in cahoots with the General! I bet she was on a secret mission, and it was just a cover story! And we have to find out what it is, because-" She cut herself off, as the sofa springs suddenly stopped providing any bounce.

Pyrrha's eyes, for once, didn't have any doubt in them. "I know you're not close, Nora, but I know Yang. She wasn't faking that."

Nora stood there for a moment, before deflating, sliding down the back of the couch into a slump. "Fiiiiiiiine. But don't you think it's weird, how they're mixed up in all this weird junk and get called into the office for meetings all the time and have contacts that show up out of nowhere!"

Pyrrha... smiled. "Of course I do. But they've been good friends, and they've helped us - helped you - out when we needed it. You... you don't know what it was like while you were..." She trailed off, then steeled herself and continued. "They've got secrets, of course. But I'm not going to pry."

"And that was super duper reasonable and everything, and I really don't want to mess up Pyrrha's friendship because she doesn't have many except for us we're her friends but anyway I still need a partner to solve this mystery so I'm asking you."

Jaune turned his head slightly, his eye barely peaking over his pillow to look at Nora from his slumped position in bed. "...Nora, I don't know anything about figuring stuff out, or about Team RWBY."

Nora poked him in the forehead. "That's not true! You talked to Ruby lots of times! And I saw you giving Weiss that coffee cake that one time."

Jaune sighed. "I talked to Ruby a bit at the start of the year, but we lost contact pretty early on. And I gave everyone coffee cake, Nora, it was the dessert for that day."

Nora unceremoniously shoved Jaune's feet off to the far side of his bed, then sat down on the newly empty space. "Well, maybe, but that's still fine! The detective's sidekick doesn't need to know anything anyway! You can just stand there and be amazed and answer leading questions while I show off my deductive brilliance! Look, let's try it now: Why do you think RWBY go creepily quiet in their room all the time?"

Jaune blinked. "They, what?"

Nora waved her hands. "Y'know, when they're murmuring and talking and laughing and all that normal team stuff, and then suddenly they go dead quiet and all you can hear is their breathing?"

Jaune finally sat up, resigned to his lack of rest. "Aren't they doing Aura Meditation or something? I heard something about that. Actually, how do you know this? Have you been stalk-"

Nora triumphantly crossed her arms, speaking over him. "That's what they claim, but who does aura meditation at midnight? It's utterly illogical!"

Jaune sighed. "Isn't that just, uh, sleep?"

Nora smiled, indulgently. "Ah, you would think so, but there's a much simpler explanation. You see, with nano-machines embedded in their brains, it would be possible-"

Jaune slumped backwards. "I'm sorry Nora, but can we do this some other time? I'm exhausted, and the kitchen shift starts at five tomorrow." At Nora's pout, he continued, "Maybe talk to Ren about it? He knows a lot more about aura meditation than I do."

...

The silence stretched.

"Ren's mad at me."

...

Jaune rolled out of the far side of the bed, then walked around to sit next to Nora. As he approached, she hastily wiped her eyes with her sleeve, but he could still see the redness. "That's not true. You didn't see it, but he... took your injury really badly. He was... really angry, at Pyrrha for not keeping you safe, and at himself for being mad at Pyrrha, and at me... and then you got better. Just like that, in a snap. And I think it still doesn't really feel real to him, even now. So when you start questioning and poking at that miracle... I think he's afraid it'll disappear."

Nora looked at her team leader, wide eyed, then poked him. "Hey! You said you didn't know anything about figuring stuff out."

Jaune breathed out, and for a moment his eyes were elsewhere, a wan smile on his face. "I... did a lot of break-up counseling for my sisters, y'know."

Nora blinked. "Break-up... nonononono! Me and Ren aren't breaking up, no way, we're together forever." She jumped up, hastily fleeing the room. "And also we can't break up because we're not dating it's totally different you should really go to sleep byeeeee-"

"So, uh, Ren?"

...

...

"Yes, Nora?"

"So I was thinking and I was being kind of rude to RWBY but anyway I looked it up and they're not scheduled to be on any more patrols after tomorrow and there's a rumor among the soldiers that the Reaper is leaving so anyway I think I should go thank them while I have a chance and I wanted to know if you wanted to come with me and thank them too-"

Ren put his book down. "Alright."

Nora hesitated for a moment, and then leaped forward and hugged him as tightly as she could. "Okay that's great that we can do this together I was so wound up and I hurt you and I'm super sorry and I'm not going anywhere we're gonna stick together forever okay, okay!?" She took a deep breath, "And I know I messed up and I want to make it up so I, uh, tomorrow I'll make you pancakes."