Weiss had a growing list of simple luxuries that she'd taken for granted. Cotton towels, an expanding wardrobe, chef-cooked meals, a personal driver, the ability to travel—so many things that once felt as fundamental as air and sunlight. How much could a cheap, unheated towel mar her favorite part of the day? How difficult could it be to drive yourself everywhere you needed to go, to fill your own tank with gas and make sure you had enough money set aside to always be able to do so?

It wasn't easy. It hadn't been easy when she had the family fortune to fall back on, the option to tackle one lifestyle change at a time rather than being thrown into the deep end. It was harder now. Now, her father was in prison, her grandfather's legacy was destroyed, and she had to carefully manage her finances to figure out how many healthy meals she could eat a week and how many had to be frozen mush, microwaved and dished onto a plate to delude herself into believing it edible.

Weiss ate a spoonful of bland peas and reminisced over the last time she'd eaten with her family. It was a year ago. She'd been home for the summer, and she'd been joined by her brother and father, as usual. They'd held a conversation about nothing in between long stretches of only the clinking of silver on porcelain. Whitley was just as cold and distant as ever, and her father made more snide remarks about her decision to drop out of business school.

The good times, Weiss thought facetiously, staring at the empty chair on the opposite end of the table.

She took another bite of her food. It didn't taste great, but it was better than anything she could make herself. She'd tried to learn how to cook during college, but with how much time it took away from her studies and how bad she was at it, it hadn't taken long for her to give up. She had more time nowadays, but it was hard to justify spending more money on a potentially terrible home-cooked dish when microwave dinners had a bulk discount.

That was the only reason. The hit to her pride whenever perfectly following a recipe to a T somehow yielded poor results had nothing to do with it.

After finishing what she could, Weiss washed her plate and retired to her room. Her healing wound began to twinge again as she sat at her desk, and she tried her best to distract herself from it with her notebook. It was already open to the last page she'd written in, a list of Grimm and their corresponding mental disorders.

Apathy: Major Depressive Disorder. / Multiple Apathy: Dysthymia. (Longer lasting, so more difficult to defeat?)

Beowulf: Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Beringel: (unencountered)

Boarbatusk: (unencountered)

. . .

Nevermore: (unencountered)

Nuckelavee: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

She flipped forward to a page that was a lot less organized. It was where she recorded phenomena she came across within mindscapes. Before Jaune Arc, it had been a set of rules she could expect to stay consistent, such as always appearing somewhere in the Emerald Forest. Now, it was more a jumble of disorganized thoughts trying to make sense of this new—she refused to call it an evolution—aberration with the window and Forever Fall.

It didn't make sense, though. Semblances never make sense, but she'd at least thought that having the same one as her mother meant that they would stay the same. Perhaps that was naive. It wasn't like there weren't differences already. But if it had to change, why did it have to change in a way that would repel all future clients? She just wanted to help people, which was hard to do if those people knew she could see their deepest, darkest secrets.

In almost two hours, the pencil in her hand never touched the page. Her wound continued to throb, ruining her focus. With a sigh of annoyance, she closed the book and made for the restroom. There, she could see it in the mirror—an angry red line running from above her left eye down to her cheek. The stitches were gone and it was slowly healing, but it still looked hideous. It always would—the doctors had been quite clear there would be a permanent scar.

As she brushed her teeth, she tried instead to gaze at her hair—to savor the sight of it while she still could. It was unique, special. Take away everything else—the wealth, the reputation, the fame—and her family still, at the very least, had that. It was the one thing Weiss could always take pride in, the one thing no one could ever take away from her.

Or so she'd thought.

Weiss spat out the minty toothpaste, then reached for her cup next to the two boxes of black hair dye that were patiently waiting until her wound was healed enough for her to finally open them—waiting for the day when there would no longer be any Schnees in Vale.

A motorcycle vacated its parking spot as Weiss pulled up to her destination. It was her first day back on her feet. Traffic was heavy and she'd hit just about every red light on her way here. Even the smallest stroke of luck was sorely appreciated.

She took a careful look up and down the street as she stepped out of her car—plenty of pedestrians on the sidewalks, but none paid any attention to her or her newly darkened hair. It was a nicer part of the city than her last client had lived in, farther away from the damage left behind from two years ago. She was less likely to have another violent encounter here, and it was nearly impossible for one to go unnoticed. Knowing that wasn't as comforting as she'd like it to be.

It was a brief elevator ride to an upper floor of the apartment building. Her CAB registration card was already in her hand as she knocked on the door.

A girl answered. She stood a couple of inches taller than Weiss at best and was only a bit less pale. A dark red highlighted the tips of her short, black hair. What struck Weiss most about her was her eyes—silver, kind, and curious.

"Hello."

"Ruby Rose?" Weiss said.

"That's me."

Weiss held up the card, her finger covering her last name. The girl took a few seconds to look at it.

"Oh! You're the psycho . . . thingy. Therapist. Right."

"We were scheduled for one o'clock, were we not?"

"Yeah, of course. Sorry. Uh, come in."

It was a far more spacious interior than Weiss's apartment, though smaller than her old bedroom in the family manor. It couldn't be called messy, but it also didn't quite fit Weiss's definition of "neat". It was all kept clean enough and she could tell everything had its place, even though that meant keys lying loose on an end table rather than a hook, spare blankets and pillows piled on the floor in a corner, and non-food related items taking up the kitchen island. There was also no real style or theme to the decor. Each piece of furniture was nice in isolation and it was all likely rather expensive, but nothing complemented one another.

Despite all, there was something very . . . homey about the place. The opportunity for extravagance was there and had been passed up. It was an interesting contrast to what she was used to, less artificial.

"Something to drink?" Ruby offered. "Water, juice, tea, coffee?"

"Coffee, if it isn't too much trouble," Weiss said. "Black."

"Gotcha. You can go ahead and wait in the living room."

Weiss took a seat on the couch and fished her notepad out of her bag. She crossed her legs as she flipped to a page with Ruby's name on it and what information she had about her condition, pencil in hand. The television was off, but a video game controller of some sort sat lit up on the coffee table next to a few ring stains.

"Here you go." Ruby handed her a warm mug and then sat in the armchair with one leg tucked beneath her. Weiss caught a brief waft of a rosy scent from her, quickly masked by the coffee's aroma.

"Thank you."

"I don't know how you can drink it like that." Ruby dropped five sugar cubes into her own mug, the liquid already inundated by cream.

"I suppose I have more refined tastes," Weiss said. She took a sip and immediately regretted that declaration. It wasn't terrible, necessarily, but could very much use at least a bit of milk or sugar.

Weiss set the mug down and took a moment to assess her client. Alert, no bags beneath her eyes, no visible lethargy—no signs at all of insomnia. She looked energetic, more so even than Weiss felt. The only thing off about her at all was that she seemed more interested in staring at the sugary abomination she was drinking than making eye contact, while also casting odd glances Weiss's way.

"So what's it like?" Ruby asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Your semblance, I mean. How does it work? Is this like a hypnosis kind of thing, or is it just a snap of the fingers, or . . . I don't know. How's it work?"

"It takes physical contact."

"That's it? Is it instant, or do you have to like, focus for a bit?"

"For you, it's instantaneous. For me, it's . . . a more involved process. Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

"Hm?" Ruby started, trying to look innocent but failing due to the color rising in her cheeks.

"You keep giving me a strange look. Why? Is it my scar?"

"No! No, it's not that. Sorry. You're just . . . a lot different than I was expecting."

"And what were you expecting?"

"Like a witch doctor or something?"

Weiss stared at her, unsure of how to process that. "A witch doctor."

"I don't know! You fiddle with people's minds. So I was just surprised to see you're so . . . elegant, I guess? No, that's dumb. I mean, I at least thought you'd be a lot older."

Weiss considered for a moment. "Elegant works. I like to think I carry myself with grace and dignity."

Ruby snickered.

Weiss's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Sorry. I just didn't think anyone really talked like that."

"Like what?"

"Never mind," Ruby said, her amusement still evident. "If you ever wanted to lean into the witch doctor thing, you totally could. The scar does kind of fit that aesthetic."

Weiss stiffened.

"Oh, I-I didn't—" Ruby said, realizing she'd said the wrong thing. "Sorry. I think it looks cool! I didn't mean—"

"Can we just get started?"

Ruby bowed her head. "Sure."

Weiss took a deep breath and forced her focus onto her notepad. It took her a moment to remember her process. "Has your condition ever been professionally diagnosed?"

"No. I can't sleep. Why would I need a doctor to tell me that?"

"A medical professional can provide treatment and suggestions to help lessen symptoms," Weiss said while she wrote. "You've never discussed it with your primary care provider or a sleep therapist?"

"No."

"What have you tried? Sleep medication, sedatives, changing your night-time habits?"

"Just about anything you can think of. Nothing helps."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

Weiss made an extra note. "How long have you been experiencing symptoms?"

"A while."

"I need you to be more specific than that."

"I don't know. Years, I guess."

Weiss frowned as she wrote it down. "Could you describe your symptoms to me?"

"I can't sleep."

"The better I understand your condition, the better the chances of me being able to successfully cure it."

Ruby took her other foot off the floor to sit cross-legged. "I don't know what you want me to say. I just can't sleep."

"So it's only difficulty falling asleep? You don't have issues with daytime drowsiness or waking up in the middle of the night?"

"Right."

"How many nights a week do you struggle with this?"

"Seven."

"How many hours of sleep do you get a night on average?"

"I don't know. Not a lot."

"Can you at least try to give an estimate?"

"Uh . . . less than four?"

Weiss paused, contemplating as she looked over everything she'd written down so far. She'd never treated insomnia before—that was why she'd been so interested in accepting this case—but even still, based on what she knew from her studies, this was unusual. She'd consider the possibility the girl was simply lying to her, but she couldn't think of a plausible reason to do that. There had to be something she was missing.

"Are there any possible underlying sources of your insomnia that you can think of?" Weiss asked. "Perhaps another mental condition such as depression, or excessive stress and anxiety in your day-to-day life?"

"I don't think so. I'm not depressed or anything. I mean, the city was attacked two years ago, I guess, but . . . Like I said, it's been an issue a lot longer than that."

"Could you be a bit more specific as to how much longer?"

"I don't know. Years. Longer than I can remember. Is all this really that important?"

"Yes, it is. I already told you—"

"I know. But you can cure it, though, can't you?"

"It's never a guarantee."

"But you'll try."

"That's why I'm here."

"Then do it. Please."

Weiss looked at her, then back to her notes. Taking a few more moments to study them, she still couldn't form any meaningful conclusions. She was beginning to doubt there was anything she could ask that would change that, not with how evasive Ruby was being with her answers.

With a sigh, she closed the pad and put it away. "Alright."

Ruby beamed. Without hesitation, she stood from her chair and plopped herself down on the couch beside Weiss. Again—a lot of energy for an insomniac. Weiss probably just caught her on one of her better days.

"Right," Weiss said. "Are you ready?"

"Of course!"

Weiss laid a gentle hand on the girl's face. She took a deep breath, unintentionally inhaling that flowery scent, and entered her mind.

At first, Weiss kept her eyes closed. She listened, hearing only a light wind rustling the leaves she could not see—leaves she didn't want to see, for her fear of knowing what color they were. It wasn't unheard of for events leading up to and surrounding traumatic experiences to blur together and become confused. It was possible her brain had twisted or fabricated the abnormalities she'd seen in Jaune Arc's mindscape—made something out of nothing so she had something to dwell on that wasn't the image of a knife in her face.

Everything would be so much easier if she'd imagined it.

She opened her eyes, and a small sense of relief swelled within her. They were green, not orange. She was back in the Emerald Forest, and there wasn't a single floating window in sight.

Taking what comfort she could in that, she drew her rapier and set off with a bit more confidence than she had coming in. She kept vigilant, scanning both the woods ahead as well as the sky. She didn't know what Grimm insomnia would take the form of, but a Nevermore would be rather fitting.

Minutes passed with no sound other than her soft footsteps and the susurration of trees. She wandered with little rhyme or reason as to what direction since there were no signs anywhere of Grimm to follow. Her attempts to find north by observing moving shadows taught her that the sun wasn't moving. That was new, but she told herself it didn't mean anything.

"Yang got the promotion yesterday."

Weiss stopped in her tracks, her blood running cold. As quiet as it was, and no matter how much she wanted to, it was difficult to deny what she'd heard—who she'd heard.

"She and Blake both took the exam. She passed, of course. First try, just like you. I know you'd be proud."

It was louder this time. With a heavy resignation, she turned around to see it—a window, identical to the one in Jaune's head, floating ten feet away. Through the glass, she saw a grave. Leaning against it was a photo depicting a woman who looked a lot like Ruby, but older. According to the engraving, her name was Summer Rose and she'd died two years ago.

The view darkened briefly, then the perspective shifted left and right before returning its focus to the grave. Weiss realized she was seeing through Ruby's eyes. It was her hand wiping tears that had blocked the glass and the movement of her head as she looked around that the window had followed.

"She could have been working with you. She should be. It's . . . I—" The sound of a choked-back sob. "I really wish you were here."

The words, soft and shaky, struck a familiar pain in Weiss's heart like the twist of a dagger. Her grip tightened around the handle of her rapier as she turned and stomped off. She shouldn't have seen this. Why did her semblance insist on showing her this?

Now would be a good time for that Grimm to show up; she really wanted to stab something.

She wasn't so fortunate, though. Her search was long, and it was fruitless. She must have traveled miles from where she'd seen that first memory, and still no Grimm. Not a track, not a sound, not a movement from the trees. She did find a second window. And a third, and a fourth. She took care to avoid them, immediately changing course before she could catch a single glimpse or word of the private memories they contained. It was a small solace that her semblance let her, but that didn't stop her mood from worsening each time it happened.

It was difficult to tell time in here given that time doesn't pass out there. It felt like hours. Sometimes the Grimm descended on her instantly, and sometimes it took a bit longer. This time, it was taking a lot longer. Eventually, there had to come a point where she accepted that she wasn't seeing any Grimm because there were none to see.

Weiss closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was staring into the silver of Ruby's back in the real world. The portrait of Summer Rose came back to her. She withdrew her hand from Ruby's face and shifted a few inches along the couch away from her.

"I'm sorry," Weiss said, her voice heavier than intended

The excitement in Ruby's expression faltered. "Sorry about what?"

The picture lingering in her head, Weiss realized she was apologizing for the wrong thing. "It didn't work. I tried, but there's nothing in your mind for me to cure. I'm sorry."

"No, that can't— I mean, that was so quick! Can't you try again?"

"It doesn't work like that."

"Please!"

"I'm telling you," Weiss said, her patience already thin, "that there's nothing I can do for you. You don't have any mental disorders. Your troubles with sleeping could have any number of root causes, such as a physical abnormality on the brain itself, or—"

"No, it's nothing like that." Ruby stared into her lap as she wrung her hands together. "Please. You're the only one who can help me."

"I can't, I've told you. My semblance can only—" Weiss started to say.

"It's not a semblance! I don't care what cab says, it has to be curable. It has to—" Ruby froze, realizing what she'd said.

"Cab?" Weiss repeated. Finally, the pieces clicked together—Ruby's dodgy answers, the lack of visible symptoms, her apparent desperation. "The C-A-B? You're a paragon?"

"No! I'm not!"

"What exactly did you mean when you said you can't sleep?"

Ruby bit her lip.

"What did you mean?" Weiss demanded.

Ruby's shoulders drooped, and with a tone of defeat, she said, "It's like I said—I can't sleep. I physically can't. I've never been able to. I've never dreamt and I've never not been awake."

A part of Weiss was able to let that sink in, to feel sympathy. The idea of a life spent in perpetual consciousness, of having to go through each day, good or bad, without the expectation of one of life's greatest and most basic comforts waiting for you at the end of it—it wasn't appealing. That part of Weiss could also acknowledge that someone with so much extra time would struggle to see much harm in wasting others'. That didn't stop the rest of her from feeling incensed.

"I cure mental illness, Ruby," Weiss said, doing her best to keep her cool. "I can't cure a semblance. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it's not a semblance!" Ruby insisted. "Please, you—"

"Of course it's a semblance! What else could it possibly be?"

"I don't know! I just thought you were the one who was finally going to be able to help me."

Weiss took a deep breath. She was failing to keep her voice from rising, but she realized that didn't matter. There was nothing left to say. She grabbed her bag and slung the strap over her shoulder.

"Wait. Where are you going?" Ruby said.

Weiss stood and began to leave.

"Hold on! I haven't—"

Weiss shut the door on her, a bit harder than necessary. That was two failed contracts in a row, now. She had a handful of others lined up from her hiatus, so losing one wasn't as detrimental, but every little bit mattered. A few more like that and she'd have to seriously reconsider her commitment to charging for services rendered rather than time given.

There was also the fact that Weiss had come here with the naive hope that what happened with Jaune Arc was a one-time thing. Like Ruby, she'd been in denial about the reality of her semblance. Now she had to cope with having to report to one of her least favorite branches of government soon, and also the subsequent death of her career.

Weiss reached the bottom of the building, stepping outside to find her car right where she'd left it. To think how grateful she was earlier over an open parking space.

A space with a "Reserved Parking Only" sign next to it.

Of course she'd missed that.

Weiss walked past it. She grabbed the ticket off her windshield and unlocked the vehicle. As soon as she was seated and the door was closed, she leaned her head against the top of the steering wheel and allowed herself one, very undignified scream of frustration.

A/N: Credit to my beta readers: I Write Big, 0neWhoWanders, and Bardothren. They're great writers who are a huge help with making this story as good as it can be.

P.S. For old readers, this chapter was rewritten as of 10/18/23. I just wasn't happy with how it was originally, but I tried to keep this new version as close to it as possible. So if you were wondering why it's different, that's why.