Here we are, a fresh chapter to start off the weekend.
Okay, so first things first, I'm really sorry if my sluggish pacing has been pissing off a lot of my readers. I'm not saying that everyone thinks this, but it's gotten to the point of being noticeable in my PM's. I've always been a slow burn writer, as my portfolio explains, but that shouldn't excuse shabby plot and poor planning. All I can do is do my best to improve and try to wrap up this current story arc and move on to the next.
I believe Patch will be done by chapters 60-62, that's a guarantee, then Vacuo will be next. After that, an arc based in Mantle will be next followed by one in Menagerie. Moving on from that will be a time-skip, but I'm going to make Jaune ten years old then have another time skip where he becomes 17 and ready for Beacon.
Please know that I am doing my best, and even with the free version of Grammarly some grammatical errors somehow slip past me when doing the final edits.
With that, I hope you all continue to enjoy my work as this goes to both old and new readers.
Cheers, Searoar.
The front door opened with an ominous creak, the ears of a trustworthy deer Faunus perked towards the hallway as the heavy footsteps of sandy boots entered the establishment.
"Ah, Hawkins, there you are!" Sam jumped off the living room couch and threw the morning newspaper he was reading aside.
"Where have you and Yang been? Carla and the others were worried sick. I'll go and tell them you've-" The deer Faunus bit his tongue.
His brown eyes drifting to the cracked Grimm-themed mask in the magician's hands, Sam shot Hawkins a curious look but received no answer. His sights then wandered to the light bruises on his cheek and neck, Sam noted Hawkins' disheveled clothes and gulped.
Hawkins, his patience long burned, gently pushed a timid child forward and asked for Sam to care for her. His priorities then narrowed, the magician simply asked where Summer, Tai, and Qrow were.
Sam directed his friend towards the backyard, and after a brief thank you, Hawkins exited through the cabin's back door without another word.
"What's gotten into him this time?" The deer Faunus scratched his scalp. Muttering something under his breath, his attention was brought to a weak tug on his pant leg.
"Hm?" Sam's felt his mouth go dry at the young girl's sorrowful visage.
Thank Oum the girl wasn't harmed, but that didn't mean her trauma had passed. Yang clung to Sam's pant leg as if it were her last rope to life, and the old man was quick to comfort her. Patting her head and back, he picked her up and called for Carla who was preparing dinner to get a bath ready.
"Sam, I've already spent the last four hours trying to keep Jaune, Trifa, and Ruby entertained. What's so important that I have to put dinner aside?" Carla peeked from the kitchen door and her eyes widened immediately. She rushed to the stove and turned off the fire, then fetched a few towels from the hallway cabinet.
As Yang was given proper care, Hawkins had finished his internal musings and opened the backyard door, and was greeted with a rather odd sight. The entire space was empty, but he did not doubt Sam's words. Thus his teammates must have relocated for better privacy.
He considered waiting for them to return, but he needed answers. Not for him, but for the innocent girl he had just protected from abduction. Besides, he really didn't want to be the one to tell Yang that Summer wasn't her true mother.
The magician's crimson eyes scanning the premises, a faraway shout garnered his attention toward a reasonably far group of thick trees. Rolling his eyes, Hawkins trudged toward the foliage, mentally preparing himself for a most heated debate. When he arrived on the scene, he was met with a most peculiar sight.
While his teammates were usually talkative among each other, they seemed completely distant. Tai had his arms crossed, while Summer had her hands on her hips, with Qrow rubbing his forehead as he acted as the mediator between the two. Despite the loud click of the door, none of the bickering adults took notice of Hawkins' presence and the magician slinked into the background waiting for a chance to speak.
"I'm not doing anything that she wants!" Summer fumed and glared daggers at her husband.
"What choice do we have, Summer? I can't think of anything at this point that will keep her away! For all we know, she could show up tonight and teleport Yang away from us in the blink of an eye!" Tai roared back.
"Easy, we won't be able to think if we let our tempers explode." Qrow sighed.
Summer threw her hands in the air. "Oh, so maybe I should give her my wedding ring and call it even?!"
Her husband blinked as the remark had completely taken him by surprise. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh please," the red reaper growled, "do you think I'm stupid? I know you and Qrow have met with her in private before, but who says that your secret rendezvous has stopped? Who knows, maybe she's pleasing you on the side for all I know!"
"Are you really questioning my loyalty now?!" Tai yelled back. "I chose-"
"You chose me after you lost your chance with Raven!" Summer screamed, her entire face reddened in fury as she positioned herself no more than an inch from Tai.
"Am I not allowed to make mistakes?!" The blonde broke down and pulled on his hair. "I've never been perfect and Oum knows how many mistakes I've made, but do you really think that asking you to marry me was one of them?!"
"Whoa, whoa, hold on!" Qrow stepped between the two and pushed them apart. "We're getting off-topic here-"
"Shut up, Qrow!" Both adults snapped.
Hawkins, who'd been spectating in silence, slowly shook his head and decided that now was the time to interfere. He'd never seen his teammates so riled up before, and he didn't want things to escalate past the point of repair. Glancing to the cracked mask in his left hand, Hawkins tossed the item and it landed with a dull plop between the three adults.
Chatter ceased then and there. All eyes veering toward the stoic man, Hawkins grunted and lazily crossed his arms.
"Do you want me to keep harboring all the hard labor? Or are you three going to act like adults and discuss the actual issue?"
"H-Hawkins, how long have you been standing there?" Summer wilted.
"Long enough to hear everything." He replied.
The red reaper's heart sank.
"Look... We'll talk later, okay, Hawkins?" Tai stepped forward, a rare expression of genuine annoyance on his visage.
"My mood to talk is even less than yours, considering I just fought off your ex-wife and saved Yang from being kidnapped. Or perhaps you'd like to wait until Yang is no longer under your parenting? I'm sure your former teammate would be laughing at your petty disputes."
"Hawkins," Summer's features stiffened at the mention of her past partner, "please... just let us deal with this issue first-"
"I'm not going to be here forever, Ms. Rose, and I don't intend to stick around until my son and the others I tolerate are put in danger. As it stands..."
Hawkins pulled out his tarot cards and shuffled.
"The odds of Ms. Branwen returning have risen to 64% and given the current discourse within my team, the chances of losing Yang stand at 71%."
Summer visibly trembled as Qrow and Tai gulped.
"However," Hawkins continued, "with me around those percentages have dropped by 34%. Which brings me to the conclusion that I must talk with Qrow alone."
His stoic stare meeting the ravenette's curious visage, the magician waited patiently for a reply.
"Wait," Summer took a deep breath and sighed. "What are you planning, Hawkins? Can't you tell us all while we're here?"
"My answer will depend on the circumstances..." Hawkins said. His response remained vague earning himself three frowns and many questions. Said questions, went unanswered as he stated he was too tired to converse anymore. So, with that, the magician left his teammates and hurried back to the cabin, eager to have a hot shower and well-earned rest.
"What do you think he's planning?" Tai scratched his scalp. Watching the stoic man's departure as he faded down the forest trails.
"I'm not sure," Summer pouted, "we don't really know what goes on in Hawkins' meticulous mind unless he tells us."
Qrow opened his mouth but quickly bit his tongue. Cupping his chin, a lightbulb dinged above his noggin as his eyes widened in revelation.
"Guys, we need to head back. I've got a bad feeling in my gut that Hawkins is planning something crazier than the three of us could devise..."
Sharing a nod, the adults accepted that their children and relationship with Hawkins took precedence over their past arguments and current emotions. However, they did agree that they would sort things out, perhaps in a therapy session with Ms. Mallari once all was said and done.
/-/
"Ah, long time no see!" Sam greeted his friends at the front door with a pearly smile, doing his best to get rid of the dampened atmosphere that surrounded them.
A ladle in hand, the deer Faunus had taken up the task of making dinner despite the initial setbacks.
"Is Yang okay?" Summer and Tai said in unison. Sharing an appreciative glance before staring back at Sam.
"Yep," the Faunus replied, "little one was pretty riled up after her trip with Hawkins, but I gave her a bath and put her to bed with Carla's help."
"Really? But I haven't seen Carla all day," Summer said. Sam chuckled. "My wife's been running back and forth since this morning trying to keep the kids who stayed behind preoccupied. But it seems our age is catching up on us farmers since Carla's already called it a night."
"What about Hawkins?" Qrow asked next.
Sam stroked his chin. "The magician actually told me to tell you that you shouldn't bother him tonight. After that, he locked himself in his guest room upstairs with his cards and hasn't come out since."
"I'll... go see if the kids are okay. Qrow, Tai, why don't you see if Yang is doing alright?" The red reaper hummed.
Seeing no reason to argue, the men set to work as Sam excused himself to continue his dinner duties leaving Summer to venture upstairs alone. However, she curled a brow at the open ceiling hatch and extended ladder in the middle of the hallway. To open the attic door was rather simple, but you needed to be able to reach the hatch's latch in order to do so. Ever curious, Summer slowly made her way to the ladder and started to climb.
/-/
"Hey, are we supposed to be up here?" Trifa asked as she climbed the ladder leading to the attic.
"I come up here all the time with Yang, so we should be okay." Ruby smiled innocently. The little girl aiding the spider Faunus through the open ceiling hatch then waved to Jaune to follow next.
"I'm not sure about this either," Jaune added, "my dad always tells me not to go into the attic back at my house so I don't think we should be playing up here."
"Aw, come on guys," Ruby pouted, "we couldn't find the soccerball anywhere else so it has to be up here."
The three kids crawled through the darkness in hopes of finding a light switch, and while Jaune and Ruby fumbled, Trifa seemed to be quite okay while delving through the shadows.
"Watch out, Jaune, there's a box right in front of you," Trifa said.
The blonde blinked and squinted. "Really? I don't see anything..."
Were his last words before his head knocked against the floorboards.
"Whoops... I forgot you can see a hundred times better than me in the dark." Jaune grunted as he rubbed his sore nose.
Before Ruby could meet a similar fate, Trifa snagged her by the collar and steered the little reaper in another direction.
"Wow, can you really see in the dark? That's really cool!" Ruby grinned before bumping against a stack of boxes thus causing them to crash down on her. Thankfully they didn't weigh a lot.
"Yeah, she's got all sorts of cool superpowers!" Jaune beamed. His wide grin caused a light dusting of pink to appear on his best friend's cheeks, though he couldn't see it because of the dark room.
After minutes of fruitless searching, no soccer ball was found, but a squeak from Ruby caused alarm.
"Ruby?" Both Trifa and Jaune asked worriedly.
"Guys, I found a light switch!" The little reaper pounded the wall and with it came a click and bright flash of light.
Jaune blinked blearily, as Trifa growled in annoyance as her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. The room now illuminated, the three kids gulped at the mess Ruby had made prior.
Cluttered items of hunter gear and old photos, the children shared a knowing nod and began to sort the items back into their respective boxes as to not get into trouble with the adults. Unfortunately, a pair of silver eyes landed on a peculiar photo of her parents during their teenage years in Beacon.
"Hey, guys, take a look at this." Ruby held up the photo while Jaune and Trifa crowded around it.
"That's auntie Summer," the boy of the group pointed to a fair woman leaning against a short tree.
"That's Uncle Tai," the spider Faunus gestured to a muscular blonde with his arms crossed.
"That's Uncle Qrow," the cookie lover smiled at a man with spiky black hair.
All shared a stuped visage at the last member of the photo. She too wore a friendly smile, but none of the kids could recall ever seeing her before. Blood-tinted eyes fitted on a sharp face, the mysterious woman held a more serious demeanor than her cohorts as she stared into the camera.
"She kinda looks like..." Jaune gulped. Unwilling to finish his awkward thought.
Sparing a glance at his friends, it seemed Trifa understood what was going on in his mind, but Ruby remained oblivious to the situation.
"Her weapon looks really cool." The little reaper said with twinkling eyes.
The innocent comment broke the uncomfortable silence and the group shared a laugh. Well, it was mostly Jaune and Trifa laughing while Ruby pouted for reasons she did not comprehend. Scouring the messy clutter for more photos, the children had forgotten the initial idea of cleaning up the attic as their curious appetites had gotten the better of them.
Trifa found an old baseball glove and bat, with Ruby claiming a handful of blueprints that made her gush. However, the longer they delved into the pile, the smile on Jaune's face disappeared and a long frown soon replaced it. Trifa, being the ever-doting best friend, took notice of the boy's shift in attitude and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Jaune," she said, "is something wrong?"
"Hm?" The blonde blinked. "A-Ah, it's nothing, sorry about that."
He tried to laugh it off, but his best friend refused to move on from the troubling matter.
"Jaune, you can tell me," Trifa's smile chipped away the boy's worry and he sighed.
"Trifa... do you think it's weird that I don't know anything about my dad? I-I know it sounds stupid... I shouldn't have said anything... I'm sorry."
The spider Faunus blinked, clearly surprised, and even Ruby had stopped gushing over the colorful prints of swords and rifles. All attention on the deflated visage of Jaune, he rubbed his neck and shifted his gaze to the floor.
Glancing at the picture frame in his hand, Trifa scratched her cheek as the photo he held was that of a wedding ceremony between Summer and Tai.
"It's just that..." Jaune sank to the floor and sat crisscrossed. Posture slumped, he mumbled something under his breath that the others had to lean in to hear.
"I don't really get it... but everybody keeps telling me that my dad always looks really sad. And it apparently gets worse whenever we come to Patch, but not even Grandpa or Grandma know why."
Trifa and Ruby shared a glance. Neither knew what to say, but no one could blame them as they simply had no experience in the matter.
Jaune's cerulean pupils gained a forlorn look to them as he stared at the wedding photo between his palms.
"Is it weird that my dad is alone?" He wasn't sure that's what he wanted to say, but he was rather confused about the whole ordeal and wasn't sure how to proceed.
Tilting his head upward, he hopped for some input to his muddled musings from his friends but bit his tongue when he saw Trifa's sour face.
"I-I'm sorry!" Jaune mentally facepalmed as his selfish thoughts had made him ignorant of his best friend's past. Trifa never knew her parents, and compared to Jaune, was even more unfortunate as she had no one to refer to as a direct member of family.
Ruby puffed her cheeks, still confused, she decided to slink to the floor and twiddle her thumbs. Her sights drifting to the open attic hatch, the decision to crawl away quietly seemingly more appealing by the second.
"Jaune..." Trifa stepped forward and hugged her sulking friend. "You don't need to be sorry for anything. It's not your fault that I was an orphan, okay?"
Tears spilled from her face as she said this, but she choked back her emotions in order to comfort her downtrodden friend.
"I-It's just..."
As the two continued to comfort one another, Ruby's ears twitched as soft thumps from the attic hatch rumbled over the floor. Timidly crawling her way to the hatch, Ruby covered a squeak as her silver eyes met with an identical pair.
"Ruby? What are you doing up here?" Summer asked, her tone coming out a lot more stern than she intended.
The little reaper jumped back and landed on her rump.
"W-We were looking for the soccer ball but we couldn't find it, so I thought it was up here..." Ruby lowered her head as her mother lifted herself into the attic. Thankfully the room was big so even Hawkins wouldn't have to slouch if he came up here.
"Jaune? Trifa?" Summer slowly approached the hugging tykes and felt a lump form in her throat after witnessing Jaune's tear-filled visage.
After an uneasy pause, Summer gathered herself and tucked a stray hair behind her left ear. With a calm and soothing voice, she asked for Trifa and Ruby to leave so that she could speak with Jaune alone.
The boy seemed hesitant about the idea and tried to wave off his troubles with false bravado, but Summer held firm and patted his head, assuring him that he wasn't in trouble.
Trifa was also reluctant to leave, but after a gentle tug on her wrist by Ruby, she smiled at the younger girl and guided her down the attic's ladder with all the skills of a big sister. Though Trifa did curl a brow at the rolled piece of paper in Ruby's hand upon their descent.
Now alone, Summer made sure to close the ceiling hatch as to deny any prying ears. Though given the hatch was no thicker than a piece of plywood, it didn't serve as the best sound deterrent. Nonetheless, the red reaper pushed her negative thoughts aside and prepared to conduct some much-needed parenting; As she had already berated herself for not being there for Yang, which she planned to fix as soon as possible, but for now there was another child in need of comfort.
"Jaune?" Summer kneeled so the boy only had to raise his head slightly to meet her warm gaze. "Is something wrong?"
"A-Auntie Summer?" Jaune stammered.
The woman wiped the tears from his eyes with her thumb and waited for him to continue.
"I-Is it weird that I don't have a mommy?"
This was not the question Summer was expecting at all. Her silver eyes veering to the wedding photo of her and Tai in Jaune's hands, she felt a painful throb in her chest that refused to be ignored.
"M-My dad never mentions anything about my mom..." Jaune rambled pitifully. "B-But Granpa Sam and Grandma Carla said that he had to have married before I was dropped off by the storks."
Summer smiled at the innocent details, her kindness rubbing off on Jaune as he presented her with a trembling one of his own. This did not last, however, as the depressive expression returned to the boy's face a few seconds later.
"I always see the other kids in the back on the farms, running to their parents when working hours are over so they can hug and laugh..."
Jaune's eyes grew moist and the tears returned.
"B-But my dad doesn't smile when he sees me!" The blonde blurted, his outburst causing Summer to flinch back for a moment.
"I-It's not fair!" Jaune whined in jealousy. "I always see the other kids getting kisses and hugs from their moms... but I don't have one..."
"Jaune..." Summer tried to speak but the boy unintentionally cut her off.
"Granpa Sam said that marrying Grandma Carla was the best decision in his life and he's always smiling whenever she's around."
Jaune stared straight up at Summer, his crying muffled after a swift embrace from the adult. Sobbing into his auntie's chest, he continued to mutter through hitched breaths.
"I-Is that the reason why my dad is so sad? Is it because he doesn't have a wife anymore?"
The red reaper racked her head for a plausible answer, but given her lack of information on Hawkins, she had to scour towards assumptions and vague explanations while also adding in her own personal views of the matter. To cut things short, comforting Jaune proved much harder than expected.
However, during their enclosed discussion, a certain magician had heard the entire conversation, as the spot that Summer and Jaune rested upon was right above his bedroom...
Dropping his cards and heaving a deep sigh, Hawkins felt the corners of his lips veer downward as a single tear rolled down his cheek. With words only he could hear, he whispered to himself...
"I... I did try to give you a loving mother, Jaune..."