Ruby sat, bundled up tightly in several layers of thick winter clothing, across the table from Neo. There was no doubt that this was the girl she'd rescued the night before, saved from freezing to death with Ruby's own body heat. She would never have guessed, from the way Neo had looked when she found her, that it was in fact the same fiendish tiny woman she'd first met in combat with Roman Torchwick. It felt like forever ago that they'd first met, under Vale's raised highway system. And then they'd met again on an Atlesian airship, just before Torchwick got eaten by a Grimm. She hoped Neo wasn't still sore about that, but she could understand if she was.
Neo, for her part, was making food. Surprisingly, it looked like she was making enough for the both of them. Either that or she was a very hungry woman, which Ruby could also understand if she was. She'd managed to scrounge up a loaf of bread and was making single-slice sandwiches with various condiments. Peanut butter was the main ingredient, but there was one sandwich with honey, another with jam, and she'd started with marshmallow fluff. Variety, it seemed, was very much the spice of life for Neo, who continued making sandwiches without Ruby's help or approval. There were other foods laid out, mostly dry goods like crackers, cookies, and a few jars of various nuts, as well as some cereal, a few fruit and some vegetables. They'd found some things that weren't edible any longer, leading Ruby to wonder how long it had been left like this. The milk had gone bad, the meat was bad, some of the fruits and vegetables had perished and the cheese was hard as a rock.
Pouring herself a bowl of Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Crunch, Ruby started eating the cereal dry. As much as it felt wrong to eat cereal dry, the milk was really really bad. Stale marshmallow cereal was technically not bad, since marshmallows took a very long time to go bad. She was sure she'd read somewhere that they actually never did, and besides, her body could probably use the sugar. Between spoonfuls of crunchy cereal, Ruby looked up across the table to see Neo was stuffing most of the sandwiches into a plastic bag. That was probably wise, as they'd be able to take a large quantity of food with them when they left.
Thinking about it... Ruby wasn't sure where to go when they left this house. She suspected most buildings would be the same as this one, only at best with less fortunate occupants. She hadn't had time to think about it before, but if this building had Neo in it, nearly frozen to death, and Ruby had spent the whole night taking care of her, then it stood to reason that there would most likely be other people in the other buildings, and the night Ruby hadn't spent rescuing them could easily lead to a city full of corpses. That still begged the question of why there were literally no people outside in a busy place like Mantle. Or how Neo happened to be in the one building Ruby decided to enter. Or how Ruby had woken up in the middle of the street like she remembered instead of staying asleep and just never waking up due to the deadly cold. At the very least, she dreaded the idea that, since the person in this building was someone she knew, perhaps the other houses held other people she would know. Had she left someone like Weiss, Blake, or Yang to die?
It left a bad taste in her mouth to think that the house next door might hold the frozen stiff corpse of a close friend, and she'd sacrificed them unknowingly in favor of a hated enemy. The dread of finding out that she had was the one thing keeping her from going to check. Well, that and how low the temperature seemed to have dropped since the sun had risen again. She leaned back in her seat at the table, looking down the hall at the front door. Ice crystals had begun to form around the frame of the door. She looked up at the window in the kitchen, seeing the entire glass pane had frosted over. She didn't need to check to see that the ice forming on the window was already over a centimeter thick. It was bad outside, and trying to visit the house next door was almost a suicidal notion for certain.
The night before, just before she'd fallen asleep, she'd entertained the thought that since she'd saved that girl she would have someone to talk to today, if nothing else. Well, she did, but she wouldn't get much talk back. Neo was notoriously quite. Ruby remembered sending her soaring off the Atlesian airship, set aloft by her parasol into a sky full of hungry Grimm, and the woman hadn't let out even an audible gasp. Whether it was a physiological condition or a conscious decision, Neo didn't talk. Ruby wondered for a second if there was still a way to communicate normally, even if silently. Setting her spoon down in her bowl, she held up her hands and waved them to catch Neo's attention. When the woman paused tying a plastic bag shut, Ruby motioned with her hands a sign that she'd learned from Jaune during one of their leader-to-leader talks. Apparently one of his younger sisters had taught him, having learned it herself due to having a deaf friend. She clasped her hands together in front of her and moved them around in a small circle.
Neo watched the sign closely for a moment before turning back to her work and finishing the knot. Pushing the bag of sandwiches aside, she turned back to Ruby and pointed at her in a sign Ruby felt pretty safe assuming it meant Neo was talking about her. She then made a strange shape with one hand with her thumb and pinkie finger tucked in and the other three fingers sticking out, then running it along in front of her face while repeatedly curling those three fingers up and straightening them again. Ruby wasn't immediately sure what it meant, but judging by Neo's facial expression it was probably some kind of insult. If she remembered Jaune's advice properly, she could probably figure out it's meaning by it's parts, and letters were often central. If that was the case, the three fingers would make it a 'W'.
"Did you just call me Weiss?"
If Neo had been one to make noise, Ruby was sure she would be grumbling if her face was anything to go by as she reached down and picked something up off the floor. It was a notepad, and she had a pencil to go with it. She quickly wrote something on it and handed it over to Ruby. Standing up to take it over the table, Ruby turned it around and found what she'd written in the top corner, in very small letters. She figured it was to save space and paper, which would probably end up in short supply before too long.
The message simply said "Apologize."
Ruby let out a long sigh. She'd seen the way Torchwick and Neo had fought together, how well they worked together. They weren't just coworkers in Salem's plot. They were close, probably at least as close as Ruby was with Weiss or Blake. She looked across the table to see Neo's face was angry. They'd found themselves on opposite sides of a war for the fate of Humanity. If every soldier who ever took another life had to apologize to the friends and family, no one would get anywhere. Maybe that might even be for the better, but in this case Ruby was not about to apologize for something that wasn't her fault. Neo clearly blamed her, but considering how things had gone she didn't think Neo could possibly know what had actually happened to Roman Torchwick.
Handing back the notepad, she solemnly shook her head. "I didn't kill him. The Grimm did."
Neo blinked in apparent shock, left standing there with the notepad held over the table where Ruby had handed it over. It was at that moment that Ruby realized that, if Salem controlled the Grimm, that meant she was indirectly, or maybe directly, responsible for Torchwick's death. If Neo knew this, then there was no question about the conclusion it would lead her to. Even if she didn't know about Salem at all, she'd still have to face the reality that Torchwick had helped, as had Neo herself, in the plot that had ultimately lead to his demise, among many others. For her part, Neo slowly sat down again, and Ruby could see several different emotions play across her face. Eventually, she decided on something else to write down and handed the notepad back.
It now read "For taking off my clothes, dunce."
That was easier to address. "Your pajamas were stuck to you, that's how cold they were. So you're welcome." Neo looked away, almost like she was embarrassed. Maybe she really was, Ruby thought, or maybe she was just diverting from the matter of Torchwick. If she was suddenly realizing that her loss was the fault of the people she'd allied herself with, not her enemies, then she might be pretending it wasn't what she was talking about in order to keep from facing her own mistakes. As far as Ruby was concerned, if Neo was going to realize that she was in the wrong, then the sooner the better. "If Cinder gets her way, there won't be anyone left on Remnant. You do know that, right? The person she's working for will kill everyone."
After a moment, Neo turned back to her. There was definitely a lot of sadness in her eyes now, along with regret. Ruby had no illusions that Neo was sorry for her wicked ways, but she'd take an admission that things would have worked out better for her if she had never thrown her lot in with Cinder. She closed her eyes and stood up suddenly, making Ruby jump in surprise. She grabbed the bag of sandwiches and slung it over her shoulder, then walked around the table and plucked the notepad out of Ruby's hands, tucking it down the front of her parka before leaning down and picking up her parasol. Ruby stood up, turning to watch Neo walk out of the kitchen with her stock of food. Neo froze in the doorway. She turned to look back at Ruby. Her eyes had gone white again.
Moving to Neo's side, Ruby looked out into the hallway to see what had caused Neo to show such blatant fear. The ice had crept up slowly until it was now almost at the foot of the stairs. Alarmed, Ruby turned to see that parts of the shelves and the counter in the kitchen had also turned white from the extreme cold. Everywhere the frigid air could creep in, it was seeping into the house and getting closer and closer to turning them into nothing more than highly detailed ice sculptures, and she hadn't even noticed. They had to get upstairs, back to their nest, the warmest part of the house. Without waiting for permission, Ruby scooped Neo up in her arms and ran to the stairs, pivoting on her heel and leaping away from the visibly advancing cold front. At the top of the stairs, she set Neo down again and pushed her towards the room they'd just been sleeping in. She still had something she needed to get.
Sitting on the hallway floor, Crescent Rose, right in front of the room where Ruby had first found Neo. That whole end of the hall was also white, frozen from the cold air, and Ruby could see the signs of frost beginning to form on her beloved weapon. She got as close as she could before she was hit with a chill like a solid wall, the cold soaking through her thick layers of clothes until she could feel it in her bones. It almost laid her out flat on the spot, but she pressed on, closer to Crescent Rose. She had to pull her hands into the sleeves to keep them from completely freezing, it felt like they would turn to ice and shatter if she didn't. She stretched out her leg and caught Crescent Rose with her toe, sliding it closer to her. She cried out in dismay at the sight of her boot turning white, only to have her mouth and throat hit with a jolt of pain, and she could feel her saliva freezing already. She fumbled for a moment, trying to pick up Crescent Rose with her hands still in her sleeves, but ended up resorting to just kicking it down the hall and running after it. Finally, she was able to bring her hands out of her sleeves again, but found them so stiff that she couldn't properly grasp her weapon. Thankfully, Neo was waiting for her and booted the weapon, and then Ruby, into the room and shut the door behind them.
Leaving Crescent Rose, as well as Neo's parasol, on the floor next to their nest, they burrowed into the mound of blankets and loose clothing even as the chill overtook the door to their backs. This was their last hope, and Ruby knew that cold so pervasive it wouldn't be stopped by insulated walls would not have any issues with a pile of clothing. If it kept coming, they would freeze to death in seconds.
But the ice stopped. Just shy of their last line of defense, the cold stopped advancing. It didn't recede, but it had stopped. Every last fiber in their bodies, down to their bone marrow, shivered from the temperature as well as from sheer terror, but they were still alive for the moment.