A/N: Goodness this came out quickly... How?

Muse: Who even knows?

X

-Weiss-

Weiss Schnee was stunned. Shocked. Subject to a turn of events so out of left field that if she were a baseball player she would have whiplash from the sheer speed of the metaphorical ball.

And it had little to do with Jaune Arc!

Mind you that was not because the boy had failed to impress her; indeed, the display of raw musical talent he'd shown earlier that day had caught her incredibly off-guard. Due to her only prior experience with his music being the awful "Weiss Schnee" tune, she'd had unfortunately low expectations regarding his overall skill level; but when Nora, and to a different extent Yang, displayed absolute confidence in him, she had to admit that her curiosity was peaked.

Come the time for his performance, her mouth had physically hung open for several moments as he blew any misunderstandings about his abilities out of the water. Being familiar with music herself, she understood exactly how difficult his showing had been to pull off. How many endless hours of practice had Jaune put into his guitar playing? And according to his sisters, he could sing as well?! She absolutely had to hear it if the opportunity arose.

But what had her stunned right at that moment was only indirectly related to Jaune, as it was instead about his sisters. After listening to Olive's words, she could only stare back into her eyes before firmly stating, "You're lying."

Olive was grinning, no doubt having anticipated her reaction to this revelation. "On my mother's honor, it's true."

"Lavender and Plum are a full year apart?! I can't believe that!"

"I know, they look exactly alike; but the only twins in this family are Sapphire and Jade, and even they have slight differences as you've seen."

Weiss put a hand to her temple in awe. "Your mother, bless her heart, had eight children out of seven pregnancies. She is a much stronger woman that I ever anticipated."

"Right?" They were seated around the living room table, Jaune having left for work an hour ago and the other sisters enjoying the sanctuary of their shared rooms playing board games. Olive offered Weiss a gummy worm from her bag, which she kindly accepted, and continued to speak. "Think about the age spread, as well. Vermilion is the oldest at twenty three, and Lavender's the youngest at ten. For at least thirteen years, there was plenty of love between our happy parents."

Despite being older by two years, Weiss felt herself flush at Olive's tone of voice. Over the last twenty-four hours, she'd learned very well that the fourth Arc child spoke her mind freely and without any sort of filter. That wasn't to say that younger four were shy, just that Olive said exactly what was on her mind unedited. At fifteen years old, she certainly had a mouth on her.

That thought raised another question for Weiss. "You said that you're fifteen, correct? Shouldn't you be a freshman at Beacon instead of still being at Signal?"

"Should be; not, though." It was said sinply, no real inflection in her voice. "I got into an 'incident' near the end of my seventh grade year. Got held back, and here I am today."

"If it isn't untoward of me, may I ask what happened?"

Olive shrugged. "You're much more polite about it than some other people are. The long and the short of it is that one of my classmates, a boy, thought that it'd be funny to crack a dead dad joke at me. Naturally I didn't think it was so funny, and his response when I said so was 'well, maybe your dad deserved to die!' You can imagine how well I reacted to that."

Weiss took in a sharp breath of air. It was remarkably cruel of the unnamed boy to say such a thing, but having dealt with Whitley and his mental torment just the day prior she couldn't say it was impossible to believe. What surprised her more, however, was Olive's attitude. "You seem to be calm about it now, discussing it with me."

"It's in the past, and I don't have to deal with him anymore. Besides-" Olive had a light smirk at this point. "-I broke his arm in two places. It's safe to say that he and I are more than even."

Suddenly, Weiss was reminded of when Yang had held her up by her collar and nearly pummeled her. Clearly, Olive and Yang were not dissimilar from each other. Weiss shook her head to clear the image and said, "Still, no one should have their deceased family mocked."

"I couldn't agree more; still, again, it's in the past. We all still feel dad's passing, of course, but the Arc family has coped well enough so far." Olive took a moment to rip the head (tail?) of a worm off with her teeth. "To tell you the truth, what bothers me more is Jaune working to pay our bills. I can't wait until I'm legally allowed to work and can take the burden off of him."

"That reminds me of another question I had: I know that Vermilion is helping however she can, but where is your second oldest sister? Apricot, Jaune said her name was?"

Olive snorted, and for her tone finally shifted from neutral to annoyed. "Apricot; she is just a peach, let me tell you. She's off in Mistral being an actress and living the dream. If I sound bitter it's because I am, because little miss 'it's all about me' won't send a penny even though she's actually making some decent dough. Much more than Vermilion, once you take in the latter having to pay off the loan from the bank for the restaurant."

So Apricot was the black sheep of the family, then. With eight children it may well have been inevitable for at least one of the flock to have a different coat. Weiss was about to make a comment, but when she looked back at Olive the girl seemed wrapped up in her own head. "Is something the matter?"

"Just... thinking about my options. A while back Jaune made a comment saying that he didn't want me to get a job at sixteen, in favor of me going to college instead of working. We got into a argument about it, without any kind of resolution." Olive gave a small but audible gasp. "I've got an idea! But-"

She looked around the room conspiratorially before addressing Weiss directly. "I know we just met yesterday, Weiss, but can you help me with something while keeping it a secret from Jaune?"

The idea of keeping an additional secret from him didn't bode well in her mind, but she could guess that Olive's 'secret' seemed to have helping Jaune himself in mind. She wanted to do something for him if she could, but she didn't want to sign up for something too large or volatile for her to handle. Weiss decided to hedge her words by saying, "That would depend on what it is you want me to do."

"Okay, so hear me out. I'll be turning sixteen next summer, and I might be able to convince Vermilion to take me on as a waitress. That's the easy part. You and Yang will have the hard part of helping me convince Jaune to A) let me work to support the family instead of him and B) get him to follow his dream of playing music. You with me so far?"

It wasn't a bad plan by any stretch, but... "Yes, and at the same time not quite. Why Yang specifically? Couldn't I just work with you and your sisters?"

"Oh, you didn't know?" She seemed genuinely surprised. "Yang's been coming by our house almost every Sunday to listen to Jaune sing and play. She understands perfectly well just how good he is and how much he loves it. And anyways I feel like, as his sisters, Jaune is even more inclined to ignore us if we're trying to take some of his burden onto ourselves. But you, Yang, and that Pyrrha girl I guess, are in the perfect position to give him a push in the right direction."

In the blink of an eye, Yang's animosity towards her suddenly had the clarity of a perfect diamond. Weiss had previously believed that Yang had acted only as one of Jaune's good friends when she admonished her for her transgressions. But making weekly house visits for the sole purpose of seeing and listening to Jaune? While Weiss was a novice in the ways of romance, that kind of dedication clearly indicated feelings of a much deeper nature.

Weiss let that soak in for a moment. Yang likes Jaune. She got mad in order protect Jaune from me because he's special to her.

This immediately created a huge obstacle for Olive's plan, even if the younger girl didn't know it yet. Judging from the looks that she'd received from Yang earlier that day, Yang was nowhere near okay with her being friendly with Jaune, particularly so if she (Yang) had romantic feelings for him. This meant that Yang would be far from willing to work with her in any type of scheme, even if it was for Jaune's own sake. Olive's plan was, essentially, doomed from the start.

It was better not to lead her on, then. "I'm sorry, Olive. I can tell that you have the best of intentions, and I want to help; but Yang and I have a bit of a history and it's safe to assume that she would not respond well to working with me. Even for Jaune."

"Wha-" Her words seemed to catch in her throat, but she recovered quickly enough. "I was gonna ask what history, but that's not even important. Look, I'll try to convince Yang myself, okay? She likes all of us, especially Lavender for reasons I can't decipher, so I'm pretty sure we can get her to budge for Jaune's sake."

Weiss couldn't help but to frown. Olive truly wanted this from the bottom of her heart, but one cannot overcome a typhoon through willpower alone. Olive sensed her trepidation and followed up with, "You don't have to answer right now. It'll be a while before I can legally work anyways, so take your time and think about it. I'll focus on Yang in the meantime."

"I'll... give it some thought. But if Yang still hates me, the whole thing will likely go up in smoke." Strictly speaking, she would actually be okay with the plan since she couldn't bring herself to actively hate Yang. What happened Saturday was her fault, after all, and romantic feelings or not Yang had Jaune's best interests at heart. "Talk to Yang and... let me know how goes, okay?"

"Okay!" That seemed to put her at ease, and Olive relaxed enough to consume the rest of her fruit-flavored dirt crawler. "Okay, heavy talk done for now. You want to move to a lighter topic?"

"Please." Pretty please, in fact.

"Cool. So I know Jaune's going with Pyrrha to the dance, but who are you going with, Weiss?"

Well, damn. It was indeed lighter, but not much easier. "I actually don't have a date to the dance. At first, I-"

-Was supposed to be going with Jaune, she finished in her head. Before last weekend the answer was "Crescent"; but she messed that up herself quite efficiently. A glance at Olive revealed that the girl was waiting for her to finish, so she cleared her throat and said, "There was a boy I was originally going with, but I wound up pushing him away and hurting him."

"Oh." A moment of contemplative silence. "To steal your line about 'being untoward', is there any chance he'd still be willing to go with you?"

Highly unlikely, as Crescent had been pushed away by Crystal and Jaune (for whatever reason he'd asked her out last year) seemed to have moved on from her and was going with Pyrrha. She doubted that Pyrrha would be okay with her stealing him away for even one dance. "I think he has... moved on."

Olive's face showed some level of doubt. "From a girl as pretty as you? I doubt it. Somebody like you leaves an impression on people. Does this mystery guy actually have a new girlfriend, or are you just guessing here?"

She put careful thought into how to answer that question truthfully. "There seem to be some girls interested in him, and he is going with one of them as a friend; but, from what I've gathered, he isn't romantically into any of them at the moment."

"Then you're all good, aren't you? I mean, I don't know what you did to push him away; but as long as you didn't do anything too dreadful, you could at least ask him for a dance while you two are there. The worst he can say is no."

Was it that simple? Not really, no, but she couldn't exactly explain that to Olive. "I'll think about it."

"Ha!" Olive let out something between a laugh and a snort, slightly surprising Weiss a bit. "Weiss, take it from a fifteen-year-old: there are some things in life that you should 'think about', like the Jaune plan with Yang, and there are some things in life that you just do. Trust me on this one."

The corner of her lips curled up a bit. "Oh? And a self-admitted fifteen-year-old can give an older girl relationship advice?"

Olive beat her chest proudly. "Weiss, I've had two good parents and three older siblings to learn from; I know what I know through watching them. Even Cactus- excuse me, Apricot gave me a few do's and don'ts in the way of life lessons I've seen her go through. Just have faith in yourself; you've got this. Him. Whatever!"

For a moment, Weiss could only stare at her and admire her strange confidence. To think that Jaune's little sister would be so earnest in trying to give her advice. Then again, that was just the Arc way, wasn't it? "Can I trade my little brother for you? Whitley could benefit from being around this family."

"My rates start around a thousand lien a week: five hundred for me living with you, and five hundred for my family teaching this brother of yours some manners." Olive hopped up as she openly laughed, which Weiss joined in with by chuckling. "Come to the kitchen with me. It's my turn to cook, so I want your opinion on which frozen pizzas to bake."

"Sounds positively healthy." She followed as instructed while giving her junior's words some thought. The Musical Jaune plan was well-intentioned, and she truly did want to help. For the meantime, maybe she should call Klein and have him bring some more clothes, particularly a dress that she had in mind for the dance. Olive had suggested that she do what she wanted to.

...The worst he could say is no, right?

-Jaune-

Jaune was in a good mood. He was in a really good mood.

Crystal had messaged him yesterday, apologising for leaving him by himself and assuring him that she was, if not happy, at least unhurt. It was a weight lifted right off of his shoulders, and he'd been more than happy to say that she was forgiven and that she was still his friend. He refrained from telling his sisters this, though only because he didn't want to spark another argument; but if they themselves brought it up, at least he would have something to show them.

As he drove home from work (a good night indeed at seventy five Lien), he had the radio cranked up loud and was singing along for the first time since the failed date.

So come on, get higher/ loosen my lips

Faith and desire/ and the swing of your hips

Just pull me down hard, and drown me in love~

Hey, don't judge; he can't control what songs are played over the radio. This continued all the way home, with him only drawing the line at singing "Heaven is a place on Remnant." Whistling "Sexy back" as he walked in the door, he was greeted by the sight of his sisters, Mother, and Weiss seated around the living room table. There was a deck of playing cards on the table, and a quick scan revealed that they were playing Vacuo Hold'em.

Jade, Mom, and Weiss were the only ones actually playing while Sapphire was the dealer, so he walked around to get a look at Weiss's hand. She had a Jack and a Queen off-suit, while the three revealed cards were eight, ten, and three.

Jade said "Check" while Juniper tapped the table to indicate the same. Weiss started to reach for her chips, but Jaune gave her a light tap on the shoulder. When she glanced back at him, his only response was to shake his head a hair. Weiss seemed to get the message. "Check."

Sapphire flipped the next card: a nine. All three players maintained perfect poker faces, but Jaune could almost feel Weiss radiate glee. Jade checked. Juniper thought for a moment, and then slid in fifty Lien worth of chips. Weiss matched it, while Jade quietly passed her cards to Sapphire.

The final flip: another eight. Juniper took only a second to slide in two hundred. Weiss seemed to hesitate, so Jaune leaned down and whispered, "Raise. Trust me."

She looked between her cards and the chips in the center of the table. Nodding to herself, and by extension him, she raised the bet by an additional two hundred that Juniper matched. The hands were revealed: Juniper had a straight Six through Ten, losing to Weiss's Eight through Queen.

Juniper sighed a little bit. "It isn't fair to coach, Son."

"If you were playing with real money I wouldn't have, but all's fair when there's no buy-in. I just know how you play." He lowered a hand down to Weiss's level, and she shook it as she accepted her winnings with her free hand. "So what did everybody eat?"

"It's Thursday," remarked Olive snidely. "What do you think?"

"Pizza, then. Any left?"

"Just a slice of pepperoni and a slice of the not-twins supreme."

"Time to pick off some olives, I guess." He spent the next ten minutes coaching Weiss through four hands as he ate, and she quickly found almost the entire collection of chips on her side of the table. Once Jade had enough of his unwanted assistance and booted him from the table, he went upstairs to his room and closed the door behind him.

He'd barely set his stuff down and pulled out his guitar when there was a knock on said door. "Come in."

He expected it to be one of his sisters, so he was surprised to see Weiss open the door. "Hey there. What's up?"

"I believe the proper response is 'the ceiling.'"

He rolled his eyes. "Nope, deeefinitely never heard that one before."

Weiss smiled in response as she pulled out his desk chair, turning it to face his bed so that she could sit facing him. "Yes, I suppose you must have since you have seven sisters. What's a fresh joke to other people is probably moldy bread to your family."

"Exactly." They shared a chuckle. He had to admit that he was greatly enjoying Weiss's presence in the Arc house, especially since she was a lot snarkier than he'd expected her to be. Still, she had come to his room for a reason. "What's really on your mind, Weiss?"

She hesitated for a moment, but collected herself and said, "If you're willing to listen, I wanted to share what led to me walking in the storm by myself. I'm not looking for pity, just... to get it off of my chest."

He was surprised once again, and set his guitar to the side to give her his full attention. "I'm all ears. Take your time."

Weiss then told him what she called the slimmed down version of the events: her father told her to come to a meeting with the White Fang, leading her to believe that she was going to be acting as the future head of the SEC. Instead, it was revealed that she'd actually had her title of heiress stripped from her, and that her father had expected her to play along with acting as an ambassador of sorts with Menagerie. Her brother Whitley then delivered the final emotional blow, sending her into a tailspin the resulted in her stormy exercise.

He listened without speaking a word, willing to hear everything she needed to get off of her chest before he asked any questions. Once she was finished, he had to take a deep breath just to keep calm. "Weiss, would it be okay if I punched your dad?"

She offere him a sad smile. "I want to say yes, but he has the world's best lawyers and thus would take your family for everything he could. I appreciate the sentiment, regardless."

Jaune had to steady his hands by gripping his sheets. How could a father deliberately hurt his own daughter like that? It was completely unconscionable. To take his mind off of his building anger, he thought to one of the better people in her story. "So Blake's dad was there. Is that related to why Blake pulled you aside earlier?"

"Indeed. Mr. Belladonna didn't tell her everything, though; just that she should support me in any way that she could. I really do appreciate Blake checking on my well-being." She emitted a short laugh. "It reminded me of your family, putting others at the front of your minds."

"Sounds like Blake's family would get along just fine with mine." Jaune felt grateful that there were people outside of the Arcs and Klein that were looking out for her. "Thank you for telling me, Weiss. If there's anything we can do, just let us know and we'll hop on it."

"I know you will, Jaune. Thank you." Her thanks were heartfelt and her smile honest, giving Jaune just a little

more fuel to do as he promised should she ever need it. Weiss glabced at the guitar he set aside. "Were you about to play a little?"

"Yeah. Do you wanna listen?"

Her smile widened. "I'd love to."

Jaune proceeded to play and sing a few songs for her. Nothing as complicated or showy as his earlier performance, mind you; just some soothing melodies that wouldn't be missing on a CD of ballads from varied artists. Throughout the private show Weiss had a somewhat serene expression, one that recognized as being similar to Yang's when she listened to him. It always warmed his heart that he could have that effect on people.

Once the third song finished, Jaune almost began a fourth when he was struck with the feeling that he'd forgotten something. But what was it? 'I don't have any written homework, nor any tests tomorrow to study for... Did it have to do with my family? Or friends and ooooh CRAP I forgot to text Pyrrha!

He set his guitar down and grabbed his phone. "Sorry, I'll play another song in a second. I just forgot to message Pyrrha like I promised to."

Jaune: Hey, Pyrrha, sorry for the late text. How's your night going?

He gave a sigh of relief at not having forgotten to text her completely. When he picked up his guitar again, he saw that Weiss had a rather indecipherable look on her face. "Is something wrong?"

She shook her head. "No, I was just reminded of a question that I wanted to ask you. If you don't mind, that is."

"More power to you. What's your question?"

Bzzt Bzzt. He glanced at the received message while Weiss composed her thoughts.

Pyrrha: It's okay, we all get tied up and busy. My night is going well, and I must say that I'm excited for Saturday.

Weiss then asked her question. "Last year, you were so persistent about getting my attention. Was there a particular reason for that?"

Jaune responded to Weiss even as he texted Pyrrha back. It was rude, he knew, but he didn't want to leave either hanging. "Oh, back then? I mean, there was a reason, but... You're gonna think I was silly."

Jaune: I'm glad you're excited! We're gonna have a lot of fun at the dance this year.

"I promise you that I won't, Jaune." She paused. "Unless you say something like you were trying to make another girl jealous. Because that would be rude."

"Oh Gods, no. My parents raised me better than that, thank you very much." He rubbed the back of his head nervously, his old habit resurfacing thanks to the awkwardness of his reason. "The reason I was so persistent was... Well, at first I tried flirting with you because you were pretty. Not really love at first sight, more just 'wow, look at this great girl that I wanna get to know.' But near the end of freshman year, I kind of stumbled on you practicing your singing."

"Practicing?" Weiss leaned back as she absorbed that little tidbit. "In Ms. Fall's Chorus room?"

He nodded. "Yeah. You were completely alone, and singing a song that I hadn't heard before, nor since. This is gonna sound corny, but your singing was just breathtaking. I wound up just listening to you practice through the doors. But what I really noticed, even more than how great your voice is, was..."

Weiss leaned closer. "Was...?"

"...How lonely you sounded." Weiss seemed to blink a few times, not responding at all verbally, so he decided to elaborate as best he could. "Whatever song that was, you were putting your very soul into it. It hit me in my core that that was the real you; that was the Weiss that people don't see from day to day. And that impression really stuck with me, even to this day."

"I know it's gonna sound weird, and maybe even a little creepy, but when I heard that soul-born song it made me want to do whatever I could to change it. Change the sound of your soul into something joyful, into something you could share with the masses instead of keeping it bottled behind closed doors."

The white-haired girl pulled back, still visibly processing what he said. He could only pray that she didn't walk out of his room creeped out by what he just said.

Bzzt Bzzt. There were two messages. He must've missed the first one arriving.

Pyrrha: I agree. This will no doubt be a night to remember :)

Pyrrha: I apologize if this sounds invasive, but did you drive Weiss home this afternoon?

"It's not creepy."

"Huh?" His head snapped up from his phone to see Weiss having relaxed a bit and smiling at him.

"I said the reason wasn't, or isn't, creepy. It was genuine and true to how you see other people, Jaune. Unorthodox, but that might just be fine anyways for us music-centered people."

Jaune let go of a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "I'm so glad you don't hate me for that."

"Never. If I may offer some advice, however: if you ask a girl out and she says no, maybe don't go for fourth and fifth times."

"Yeah, I learned that the hard way." He grinned as he pulled his guitar back into position. "One more song?"

"Absolutely." She smiled once more. "And maybe, if you let me know ahead of any performance, I might be able to join you. Maybe we could do a duet for Ms. Fall's class?"

"So you're still in Chorus? We'll see, I guess." He rolled his shoulders and started to strum. They both relaxed into the music for just a few more minutes, ignoring anything else.

Bzzt Bzzt.

Pyrrha: I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have asked.

X

To anyone concerned about Yang's lack of presence in the last few chapters, don't worry: the blonde brawler gets the front and center treatment next chapter.

I hope you enjoyed it! Please consider leaving a review, and have a nice day!