When they had finally arrived at the Arc's place, it turned out that the man was still talking, going on and on about wheat prices as Yang and Blake tried to thank him for the ride. He was probably still talking to himself even as he drove off… which made Blake realize she wasn't actually sure that the farm they were dropped off at was that actual Arc farm and they hadn't been deposited at some random farmhouse by a man who'd gotten agitated about his chickens and wouldn't be reasonable for another twenty-four hours.

Either way… she shared a look with Yang before looking up at the large, though visibly weathered and frequently patched over, farmhouse that stood at the top of the hill up the path. It seemed like the sort of place Jaune would be from, a storied building from an old lineage, richer more in history and family than in lien, and also… kind of not the place Blake would have expected him to be from.

It was eminently reasonable that this was his home, Jaune was from the countryside and this was a country home, but Blake was struggling to accept just how… picturesque it was! She could already picture novels set at this place, passionate romances in the Valean countryside, veterans of war and tragedy coming to these grounds to find healing and peace. No, Blake didn't really know Jaune all that well other than being the Leader of their sister Team and close friends with her girlfriend's little sister, but he ought to have known Blake well enough to know she'd be all over this kind of place! If this really was his childhood home, Blake was going to be cross that a place of enchantment and literary inspiration had been this close to her for her entire time at Beacon!

Sitting in the back of a truck as chickens tried their best to get her where the Grimm failed hadn't done much to quiet the roiling emotions—made even more unsettled by seeing Yang, her thoughts turbulent and unreadable on her face—so Blake appreciated having something to take her mind off of her relationship and redirect it to an easier target.

"So Jaune grew up here…" she mused, the first words she'd spoken to Yang in… what felt like over an hour in the back of that truck.

"I know, right?" Yang laughed, and damn, Blake hadn't expected how good it would feel to hear her laugh! "Every time he wouldn't shut up about Camembert I just assumed he lived in a place like this and he actually lived in a place like this!"

Blake smiled—another flood of relief, feeling her lips curl so naturally into a smile—as she asked, "Are you ready to meet the people who made Jaune?"

"Gonna be on my best behavior," Yang said with a grin as they made their way up the path, "But oh man, I have had some questions about the Arc Family Lore that I can now get an answer to…"

Trying not to snort, Blake jogged on ahead to knock at the door, a few quick raps to announce their arrival. She reminded herself that, even if they had a good relationship with Jaune and frequently razzed him as part of their repartee as Huntsmen, this was his family, and, more importantly, they were here to ask for food and lodgings—being respectful here might get her a bed, and that was worth more lien that was countable. So she had to present herself carefully and correctly, and do her best to win them over.

The door opened, and a lanky blonde teenager stood there, probably about 17 and looking the exact picture of what Blake expected one of Jaune's sisters to look like. Yang, always the more social of the two of them, waved, and opened her mouth to-

The teen immediately turned around and yelled, "MOM!" not even waiting to say hello, "A COUSIN'S VISITING!"

"WHICH COUSIN?" an older female voice came thundering back.

The girl turned to look at Yang… for a second, then whipped right back around to holler, "I DUNNO. SHE'S A HUNTRESS!"

"TELL HER JAUNE'S GOT THE SWORD."

She turned around to face the two of them. "Yeah…" she said dryly, "My brother's got great-grandpa's sword. He's at Beacon, but you can stay for dinner if you want."

Blake blinked. Even Yang seemed taken aback by the blunt directness and utter disinterest they had received at the door. It was usually Yang's technique to disarm others through her particular form of Valean charm, so seeing it flipped around left them both a little dazed.

"I'm… not an Arc," Yang said at last.

"Oh," the girl replied before asking, "So you're a Dart or Burgundia…?"

Yang shook her head. "No, no, Xiao Long, Yang Xiao Long. I'm not- not related to you at all."

"Oh," she said again, her tone conveying that she considered this revelation to be almost completely unimportant to her before asking, "Is this about Mr. Green's chickens? Cause I dunno what he told you, but it ain't Grimm that're getting them, it's foxes, and you don't need Huntresses for foxes, but he's always going on and on about those chickens."

She shrugged. "Some farmers only got their chickens to talk to, makes them a little weird."

"We've noticed," Yang said dryly.

"We're Huntresses at Beacon," Blake spoke up, "We know your brother, he's always said that if we were in Valois we can-"

"Oh, you need a room?" she asked, "Yeah, we got some spares. You can sleep in Jaune's room, actually, but, uh, if you were hoping to see any of his old stuff, that all got packed up for storage when we realized he probably wasn't gonna flunk out of Beacon." She shrugged. "I thought he'd come back after that big battle you all had, but when he didn't, we needed the room, so… packed his stuff up and gave it over. But it's open now, if you want it."

With that, she simply… turned away and walked off, leaving the door open behind her. Blake exchanged a look with Yang, neither of them really knowing what to do after that introduction.

"Do we…" Yang asked, unfamiliar with the experience of being on the back foot as she said, "Just go in?"

"Yeah…" Blake murmured as the two of them awkwardly entered the house where, in the moment the girl who'd gotten the door for them had turned around, she'd disappeared. So where they were supposed to go to get to Jaune's old room…

But they heard a noise and, stepping through a doorway, they saw a middle-aged woman, as blonde as Jaune or his apparent sister was, but having a build much more like her son than the gangly teen who'd met her at the door. She wasn't a Huntress by any stretch, but she was tall, with a figure that suggested the mixing bowl in her hands was part of her everyday routine of constant labor to keep her household in good order. The harried look on her face likewise suggested just as much.

"June, get back here!" she barked towards where Jaune's sister, evidently June, walked off, "Help these young ladies with their bags and show'em where they'll be sleeping tonight!"

She then turned to Yang and Blake, still mixing the bowl in her hands as she affected a tone of domestic politeness. "Hello there, I'm Jaune's mother, I'd welcome you into my home, but I have to finish these- JUNE, I SAID GET BACK HERE- and everything's all a whirlwind right now, but please! Make yourself at home!"

"It's a pleasure to-"

But before Blake could introduce herself, Mrs. Arc turned back towards the kitchen as the somehow more sallow-faced than the last time teen reappeared.

"Alright, alright," she grumbled, "You two follow me and I'll get you a room."

They followed behind her into a twisty hallway, the both of them feeling the sheer bewilderment of their welcome. This… this was not what Blake had been expecting from Jaune's family, but from the general disorganization, she suddenly felt like she understood how he was able to get along so well with Nora. The girl, June, seemed utterly unconcerned with any of their reaction, though, as she turned to them while still walking forward.

"I'm June, I'm Jaune's second youngest sister, I'm the twin, and… I dunno, he ever talk about us?"

"Just that there were seven of you," Yang said with a shrug, "One of your sisters lives in Argus and has a kid?"

June gave them a crooked smile. "Yeah, that's Saphron," she said, "She and Jaune were always tight so I guess… guess we just didn't make the cut."

She gave a theatrical sigh, then grinned even wider. "So I can tell you all the dirt about him."

"My first encounter with your brother was him throwing up on my shoes," Yang said dryly.

"And my first encounter with him was in a bunny onesie," Blake added.

June nodded. "Okay, okay, so you know about the onesie… oh!" she suddenly brightened, "One time, we dressed him up in-"

"-a dress," Blake completed, "We've seen the photos."

"He pulls it off," Yang said with a shrug.

But June just smiled wider. "Oh, we put him in a dress way more than one time, Jaune says he's not into it, but he totally loves wearing high heels."

From the now annual experience of seeing Jaune in a dress, an experience that got less ironic and self-deprecating every year and more just… ordinary crossdressing, Blake didn't really doubt it. Blake wasn't sure why he was still too self-conscious to just admit it at this point, Brothers knew he was more at home in a dress than Nora or especially Ruby. Triply so when it came to heels.

"But anyway," June continued, "One time, we put him in this sailor outfit, Saphron picked it out and Jaune loved it, didn't even realize it was a girl's outfit even though it had a skirt, but he tore around the farm showing everyone and pretending to be a sailor, only for Grand-Mere to see him and-"

"Grand-Mere?" Blake asked.

"Grandmother," Yang explained, "Old Valean for it, at least."

"Yeah," June said, grinning wildly, "And she went off. Not for the crossdressing, nah, she lectured him for, like, an hour about how sailors were untrustworthy and even if they didn't cheat you, they'll just die out at sea if you give them any money and just started giving Jaune the most nightmarish description of the ocean that he couldn't go near water without getting sick. That's the real source of his motion sickness, cause he's the only one in the family who has any problem with it."

Yang chuckled. "I respect anyone terrifying enough to give someone a permanent medical condition through haranguing alone," she said with a smirk, "Always a gift I wish I had, but I think it's the sort of thing you only get from life experience."

"You're going to meet Grand-Mere at dinner," June said with a shrug, "So yeah, you'll get to see for yourself."

But with that, she threw open the door and revealed the room. It was sparse, a bed, a desk, a window, a little rug on the floor, but any hope of seeing Jaune's childhood bedroom was quashed as soon as she looked at the bare walls. June had mentioned that the room had been packed up—a thought that suddenly gave Blake a pang, thinking of her own childhood bedroom, left behind so long ago and how long she'd been putting off a return to Menagerie. Hard thoughts, interrupted by a jab to her side from Yang.

"We're gonna be bunking close tonight," she said, her grin only getting wider as she gestured at the twin bed.

"Izzat a problem?" June lazily asked, "Cause I think we've got… a bedroll or something somewhere."

"Oh it's not gonna be a problem at all!" Yang laughed, wrapping her arms tightly around Blake as she pressed her body close. Blake almost succumbed to the urge to swat her hands away before she could remind herself that Yang was just trying to get that rise out of her.

"That's good, cause I really didn't want to find it," June said, either oblivious to Yang's innuendo or just deliberately and utterly disinterested in anything that wasn't about her teenaged world. Blake suspected the latter. "So if you don't need anything…"

"Yeah, we're… we're good," Blake said with a smile, remembering when she was the callow youth… well, the good parts of those times, not the… Adam parts.

"Dinner's at six, but you'll hear the bell," June continued, already turning and walking out the door, "If you need anything just tell mom!"

…Blake suspected that Mrs. Arc would have a different opinion, but June was already gone. Leaving the two of them to unpack a few items to try and make the room more comfortable, but… there really wasn't all that much. They traveled light while on missions, and while Yang carried a little more hair products than was probably wise, Blake and Yang both quickly found themselves unpacked and alone in the room together.

"Well," Yang said, putting her travel pillow on the bed, "this is gonna be interesting."

"Gonna have a lot to talk to Jaune about when we get back," Blake murmured.

Yang shook her head, a smile breaking across her face, "Kills me that we didn't get to see what his bedroom actually looked like… I wanted to see the bikini posters."

Blake couldn't help but giggle at that. "Sleep easy knowing that this is where a young and lonely Jaune thought about-"

"Oh come on!" Yang gave her a playful shove before hopping onto the bed, "That's my line, I'm the one who makes things inappropriate!"

They laughed. Together. The day had been… ups and downs. Very uneven. But it was nice to know that after they'd had such a turbulent, emotional conversation, Yang was still Yang. Loud and teasing and endlessly inappropriate and… Blake had to admit, a part of her was always relieved when she could tell herself that things hadn't been changed forever between the two of them.

Yes, they'd left that conversation unfinished and the interruption of the Arc family had given them some much needed levity—not to mention, some actual comfort on their trip back home—but Blake lay down on the bed and rolled into Yang's arms—still careful not to disturb her shoulder—she felt a lot better for the first time since they'd taken down the Nevermore.

So…

Jaune's grandmother, sorry, Grand-Mere was…

Intense.

She was a tiny woman, shrunken, really, but her physical stature did not diminish either her presence or, apparently, her physical ability as she moved from the kitchen to the table carrying platters of food. Blake's attempt to offer help was met with a glare that was in no way diminished by the cataracts in her eyes. This was a woman who had a way of doing things and did not brook any differences on the matter. That she could evidently enforce a lifelong discomfort with high-speed vehicles just from her storytelling was something Blake now believed. With a single look, she practically forced Yang and Blake both to the table and into their seats, where they would receive the family hospitality.

From the looks of things, though, they weren't the only ones receiving it. It was easy to identify Jaune's family—all the blondes—but there were others who clearly weren't related. It was a big table, built for a family with eight children, but now, only three of Jaune's younger sisters were still living at home, June, her twin sister Joan, and a third girl who Blake hadn't been introduced to, and the remainder of the space had been given over to people who seemed to be farm workers. With the exception of the blond man who sat at the head of the table who had to be Jaune's father, all the men here weren't part of the Arc family. It was an interesting social dynamic, how rural Valean life worked outside the nuclear family structure, something even more traditional.

But Blake wasn't looking at the room like a sociologist. She was meeting a friend's family, seeing them around their own dinner table, and was fascinated by what she was seeing. Mr. Arc was very different from his son, a slight, smaller man who wore spectacles, but that was only their physical features. Hearing him talk, seeing how he carried himself as he spoke with his workmen or asked his daughters about his day—seeing how he flirted with his wife—and she was seeing exactly where Jaune got it. In fact, she kept seeing little flashes of Jaune Arc behavior everywhere she looked. He had his father's mannerisms, but seeing his mother give direction as the table was set and Blake could hear the same, ringing iron she heard in Jaune's voice when he ordered Nora to charge in on the attack. And while the twins June and Joan had the utterly disinterested and above-it-all look that only teenage girls could master, Blake could see traces of their brother even in that.

But dinner was served and Blake was looking forward to enjoying something other than freeze dried rations!

"Thank you for having us," Blake said, "We… Yang and I, I don't know what we would have done without a place to-"

"There's always room at our table," Mrs. Arc said firmly, "Only way anyone makes it through this world is with others, and the Arc family isn't going to forget that. Not in this generation or the next one."

One of Jaune's sisters rolled her eyes at that, the statement evidently intended for her specifically, but Blake got the feeling that it was the sort of thing

"After all, a stranger's just-"

"-a friend you haven't met," Jaune's other sister said, the one who wasn't a twin, her voice rich with teenage sarcasm.

"Jaune says that at Beacon!" Yang excitedly cut in, "He says it all the time even after it got him mugged by-"

"My son was mugged?" Mrs. Arc cried in alarm.

Yang turned pale, realizing that she probably shouldn't have said that. Having spent their first year at Beacon fighting a dangerous criminal conspiracy had given Team RWBY a… skewed perception of what was normal to expect.

"Attempted mugging," Blake quickly cut in, "The criminal failed to identify him as a Huntsman and only had a standard handgun. No dust ammunition, so Jaune's aura was more than enough to handle the shot and-"

"My son was shot?" Mrs. Arc cried as Blake realized that was worse.

"Strictly speaking, I've shot Jaune," Yang said, "In Goodwitch's class mostly and once by accident. In my defense, that armor plate on his chest just makes a perfect target."

Why Yang felt that any and every moment could be improved by a joke, Blake would never know, but it also meant Yang felt the need to keep going.

"He's taken a close range shotgun blast from me and still managed to clock me in the head with his shield before he went down, Ruby's shot him with more rifle rounds than I can count, Weiss mostly stabs him but she still has- Oh! And he's on a team with Nora so he's been hit by so many grenades…"

Her voice trailed off as she was interrupted… by the sound of Mr. Arc chuckling.

"So my son's the hardy sort?" he asked, an amused smile on his face.

"Extremely!" Yang confidently replied, "Takes a lot to take your son down. I'm a front-line brawler specialist and even I can't take as much punishment as Jaune does."

Jaune's mother did not seem particularly mollified by Yang's compliment, but his sisters seemed genuinely impressed, and his father…

"He was always getting himself hurt as a child," he chuckled as he buttered a roll, "I must have told Saphron a thousand times, anything Jaune sees you do, he'll try to do himself, only he's five years younger and not half as good at climbing trees or jumping across creeks. I got used to Jaune having an iron skull, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised he's found a good use for it as a Huntsman!"

Blake nervously chuckled. "He's… accomplished a lot at Beacon, I'm sure if he hasn't mentioned everything to you, it's because he has a lot to talk about."

"Oh, he tells us plenty, not that he calls as often as he should," Mrs. Arc said, "But I have eight children, and I know how much they try to keep from their parents. They think they'll worry us, like we're not already worried about them enough with the secret-keeping. I know being a Huntsman is violent work, but he's certainly never mentioned being shot by a criminal."

"Helene…" Jaune's father patiently cut in, "What's the difference? It's Huntsmen work, and there aren't criminals scarier than the Grimm-"

Blake… had a different experience of those categories.

"-so what's it matter that he-"

"It matters," Mrs. Arc said, her voice making it clear that she was the final word on this, and not to be persuaded in any way.

But with the last word said, Blake could enjoy dinner, and dig into the-

"My grandson," Grand-Mere said, her eyes piercing Blake to her core, "he cooks for you, yes?"

"Ma…" Mrs. Arc patiently cut in, "The Academy feeds them, Jaune doesn't-"

"BAH!" she spat, gesturing at Yang with her knife, a surprisingly violent gesture from such an old woman. "My grandson, I open my kitchen to him, teach him the family recipes, take the time and the care to ensure that the tradition stays alive, he-" she gestured at her granddaughters, using her knife as a very threatening baton, "he had the knack for it, he learned where you did not. If Maman, Brothers rest her soul, knew all that she taught me was now going unused… the shame, the shame!"

"Grand-Mere," June… maybe Joan spoke up, sounding bored as she replied, "Jaune's there to learn to be a Huntsman, he doesn't have time to be cooking."

"My father was the war hero," she groused, "and I heard, heard plenty of times growing up that if, in the War, he had to choose between a hundred additional warriors or one man who knew to make a proper cassoulet, he would take the chef every time!"

From the look of the table, this was a story that had been shared many times.

"But the Brothers teach us!" she continued, clearly on a roll, "To neglect a gift is a sin! He had the knack and the best education anyone in Vale could receive, I expect to know if he is using it!"

She was looking directly at them, and while Blake was very much appreciating fine Valean cooking, she had no idea how to answer the question. Had Jaune ever cooked for them? Hell no. And part of Blake was slightly wrathful that he hadn't, but the other part of Blake, the stronger, better part of Blake, told her not to embarrass him in front of the matriarch of the family.

But of course…

"Grand-Mere Arc, I think you are entirely right about Jaune," Yang said, a big, stupid grin on her face, "And I will be sure to tell him that generations of Arc cooking knowledge should not be neglected. Because this," she gestured to the plate in front of her, "is a testament to how much we've been missing out at Beacon!"

But she only answered Yang with a wary look.

"Ehhhhh, you don't have to flatter me," she grumbled, "You're from Patch—could tell from your accent—and I know what you eat on that island. Whole cows, devoured at once! Boundless appetites! The Blakytny family, they were from Patch." Her voice turned low. "Gangsters," she whispered.

"Mom, they weren't gangsters,"

"Their son had a mustache!" Grand-Mere shot back as though that was all the proof she needed. "And you, Miss Xiao Long," she said her name like every syllable was made of ice, "If Patch thinks it can secede from Vale, my father fought for the united Kingdom, my husband fought for the united Kingdom, and if Patch should try and leave, I will go to my grandson, I will get my father's sword, and you ruffians will be answering to me."

She achieved something that the Grimm could not, the White Fang could not, all the violent and destructive forces Blake had fought alongside Yang could not.

Yang seemed genuinely unprepared for the threat of this tiny, elderly woman.

"I will keep that in mind," she said, her voice uncharacteristically small.

Jaune's sister cleared her throat, "You know, these potatoes-"

"My grandson's found a wife, no?" Grand-Mere suddenly asked, rather pointedly and directly at Blake, who froze in response.

Yang shot her a panicked glance. There were… things they knew about Jaune that his family… might not know about. Things bigger than the usual issues of their friends' grandma asking about his love life! Things that were generally more secret from the entire world, things about how Pyrrha Nikos hadn't actually suffered a "career-ending injury" in her battle with Cinder Fall and there was a completely different reason she no longer competed in tournaments even as she continued her Beacon schooling. And it might be because of that reason that Jaune was guarded in what he told his family about his relationships, and perhaps, Blake and Yang could make a mess of things if they weren't careful.

"Oh, Yang, Blake, have you had some of the potatoes?" Mrs. Arc suddenly spoke up, graciously changing the subject as she urged one of the men to pass a casserole dish full of scalloped potatoes over to the both of them.

Thanks to Renarde for feedback on this work!