Time
Jaune Arc stepped into the blisteringly hot desert of Vacuo.
The soft footfalls of team RWBY went unnoticed behind him, the hot, dry air filled his lungs with dust and caused him to cough violently. The sun beat down on his armour, heating it even within the few seconds after he'd stepped from the portal.
Remnant, again. After twenty? Thirty? Years in the Ever After, it felt… strange, to be back, even in a new kingdom.
The earth under his feet felt wrong. Did that make sense? Not the unusual give and shift of the sand, he'd lived right by the beach with his family for years. No, it just felt like… the world was off.
As if he'd gone sailing for years and stepping ashore again was throwing his body for a loop.
The girls were pointing excitedly at Vacuo, chatting amongst themselves. Jaune's eyes fell back on decades of routine; keeping those under his protection within eyesight. Scanning the horizon for threats as they traipsed through the sand.
Weiss was grilling Ruby on her time in the Great Tree, and what had happened there. Loosely paying attention to the conversation, he picked up that it was all a bit of a blur to her, but there was something about cases, and choosing. Blake & Yang weren't saying anything at all, content to listen to Ruby and hold hands, exchanging bashful glances.
Maybe it was shitty of him to think, but something about their doe-eyed, head over heels gaze for each other chafed at him, because he recognised the expression. It similar, though less veiled, to the way his hunting partner used to look at him.
Jaune had watched her training videos night after night again in the Ever After. As much as he'd held out hope that if he waited, team RWBY would find him, it had not been that vain hope that had held him together. It was entirely possible that his little accident with that thrice-damned clock had taken him too far back to see them again, that he would live his life and die before they ever arrived. The arrival of Alyx and Lewis had almost proven it; the story of The Girl Who Fell Through The World had been around for decades before he'd read it as a kid. If they were still children themselves after he'd spent years in that place, if the book hadn't even been written yet, would he really ever see his friends, his home, again?
So he'd fallen back to the one friend he could see. Pyrrha. He watched her training videos, night after night. It became something like evening prayer for him, a religion of one. Evangelising the memory of Pyrrha Nikos. The irony had not been lost on him that she'd have hated it, being placed on a pedestal like that. But it was all he had left, the only time he could spend with her, and if hers had been the last face from Remnant he ever saw, even in the colour-faded, pale glow of a scroll, then that he could live with.
But eventually even Scroll batteries die.
It had not been long after Alyx had poisoned him. The night that the scroll had finally given up, where the video cut off, Pyrrha had just said his name, just as he'd heard a thousand times before, in that way she did that hinted at wanting to say more.
"Jaune, Jaune I-"
It was a good thing he'd still been weak from the poisoning, because the final loss of her drove him to reach for his sword, to do something stupid. The weight of Penny, of Alyx's betrayal, the fact that he might never get out and knowing he'd never see Pyrrha's face again, even just as a video, a few moments of captured time, had driven him to his breaking point.
As usual, he had been too weak. The poison had taken too much of a toll, and by the time he'd recovered, he owed the Paper Pleasers too much to waste their efforts, and for all he'd known his friends might still come along, might still need help, so he'd given himself to that goal entirely, desperately thin though it was in terms of sense.
Now even the memory of her was starting to fade. It had been so long that he'd started to forget pieces of what she looked like. Not completely, of course. The flaming red hair, the emerald eyes, the smirk on her face when she swept his leg, her voice in his ear… These he remembered clear as day. It was the smaller things. The curve of her jaw eluded him. Did she wear that armband and bracer on one arm or two? Did her circlet have chains on it? What did she like to wear outside of her combat gear again?
Jaune Arc loved his friends more than anything, but watching Yang & Blake look at each other that way was rubbing salt in a wound he'd long thought closed.
A wound in the air opened in swirling black & red light, snapping him from his reverie.
What was left of Crocea Mors was in his hand before he could blink, but Yang's arm in front of them all held him back.
Raven Branwen stepped through the portal, alone, eyes casting around like a wild-woman for all of a second before she saw her daughter.
"YANG!"
Raven started forward, only for a bullet to kick up the sand in front of her.
"Still working with psychopaths?" Asked Blake, arm outstretched, gambol shroud's barrel smoking.
Both raven-haired women eyed each-other, even as Yang's spare arm placed itself on Blake's, lowering her gun hand toward the ground.
"What do you want, Mom?"
Yang was tired, Jaune could see that. Her shoulders sagged and her hair lacked the vibrance it usually carried. They were all exhausted. Aside from the short sleep at Jaune's in the Ever After, Team RWBY hadn't had a proper rest in days, and had spent most of that time fighting, trying to organise and execute a mass exodus, or navigating an entirely alien dimension.
Jaune was tired too. He hadn't had a proper rest in years, sleeping in short shifts to keep the paper pleasers from harm.
Raven's mouth opened as she looked for the right thing to say. False apology, threat or condescension was expected, given what Ruby had told him about the woman in passing. Yang didn't really talk about her mother, even after, especially after Haven.
"I just want to take you to your Uncle."
Not what they were expecting.
"Uncle Qrow is in Atlas, there's no way he got here this fast."
Raven quieted for a second.
"How long do you think you've been gone, Yang?"
The blonde looked around at her teammates, all equally confused by the question.
"A couple days maybe?"
Raven sighed, shook her head.
"You, your team and-"
The woman leaned to one side to look past them at Jaune.
"Tall, blonde and banana-haired over there, have been gone for months."
Nearly three months, as it happened. Raven's portal had led them straight into an impromptu little get together atop the highest pyramid in Vacuo.
Nora was all but vomiting words at him as Ren stood off awkwardly to the side, one grinning like an idiot while the other smiled softly but meaningfully. Rib-cracking hugs had been exchanged, and Nora was filling him in on random gossip like who was dating who in the Happy Huntresses while Ren tried and failed to get words in edge wise to properly brief him on what actually important things had happened in his absence.
They were away from the others. Ruby was catching up with her uncle, Yang was trying to navigate some semblance of civil conversation with her mother while Raven and Blake eyed each-other like they were evaluating a threat. Weiss was quietly but meaningfully getting reacquainted with her family, who despite their attempts at proper decorum had tears in their eyes at her arrival.
All JN_R really had here was each other. Which was more than enough for Jaune, it was more than he'd had in far too long. Though he had something important to do. Something he dreaded having to do.
"Where's Dr. Polendina?"
Nora suddenly stopped talking, and cast a glance at Ren. Their sudden silence caused Jaune to quirk an eyebrow.
"Guys?"
"He's…" Ren begain.
"He's at Amity Arena, set up a lab in the lower areas, Maria's helping him, but…"
Ren looked awkwardly at Nora. Awkwardly? Since when had these two ever been awkward around each-other? They were always on the same wavelength.
Nora sighed and continued.
"He's not well, Jaune. Penny not making it hit him hard. Really hard, and he wasn't well before Atlas fell as it was…"
Both their faces fell, haunted by memory.
"We tried to come back-"
"The portal, we couldn't get through, it wouldn't let us-"
They both started apologising. Jaune just smiled.
"I'm honestly just glad you two are okay."
They glanced at each-other and shuffled on their feet awkwardly.
"Yeah, we're still here!" Nora grinned brightly.
Falsely.
Even as Ren's carefully schooled features flickered just enough to let Jaune know what he needed to know.
It may've been decades, but he still knew how to read his team like a book. When you know someone, really know them, time has no way of eroding that knowledge. Jaune knew his teammates. He knew them like the back of his hand. There was some issue, some problem, and neither wanted to voice it in front of the other.
Polendina might have to wait.
"So, what was Weiss saying about you being the grand old Rusted Knight?" Queried Nora, a feral grin in her eye.
Shit, maybe a lot would have to wait.
A month later, and Jaune was no closer to solving whatever was happening with those two.
Usually Nora would blab of her own accord or Ren would seek him for solace and conversation over a cup of green tea, but neither had made any of their usual attempts to get his input, and whenever queried, Nora brushed it off or Ren just shook his head sullenly.
Jaune had been better at getting them to talk to him, once upon a time. He was certain of it. Time had stripped him of that, it seemed. Talking had never been a strong suit of his, even back at Beacon, and his years of isolation hadn't helped. Even talking to team RWBY had been exhausting, and that had only lead to Weiss declaring that he "Wasn't all there."
Said snow-haired former-heiress had been looking at him funny ever since the Ever After, and the last thing Jaune wanted or needed was her looking at him like he was nuts. Weiss had saved him, in a way, by reminding him that it was okay to fail, but aspects of it sat in his head like shards of glass. The way he'd kept his hand on her waist too long, nearly cried like a child, gods it reminded him of his stupid and wildly bizarre attempts to 'woo' her at Beacon, and he did not need her thinking he was trying that crap again, so he was keeping his distance, despite her popping up at the oddest of times.
So, with the bizarreness of his own team, team RWBY's business with their immediate family, and his putting off going to see Dr. Polendina, Jaune found himself, once again, in the company of Oscar Pine.
"So, did you do the journaling I recommended last night?" Queried the much younger and yet much older boy-man.
"For once, yes. Wrote about a particularly bad scrap Juniper and I had with a Jabberwalker some years back."
Oscar nodded. By now, bizzare as everything had been, Os/Oz had a grasp on the nature of the Ever After from their conversations.
"What floated that particular memory?"
"It… Was the first time I'd fought since Alyx… since the scroll died. I hadn't been sure if I even wanted to live through the next fight."
Oscar sighed the sigh of a man who'd had those thoughts himself far too many times, and nodded.
"So, how did you?"
The memory of a flame haired girl giving him her first kiss and throwing him away had flashed across his eyes then as it was now.
"I… found a reason. Had to make the sacrifices to keep me around worth it." Jaune said honestly.
"Ah, survivors guilt. That is an interesting motivation."
Jaune said nothing.
"Is guilt why you haven't gone to see Dr Polendina?"
The sudden question made the yellow-haired boy? Man? Flinch.
"I'm not sure how that's relevant?"
"Relevant, perhaps not, but you owe it to yourself to try to talk to the man, and he deserves to know the truth about what happened to his daughter."
Jaune cast his eyes out of the window, eyeing the Vacuoan sunset.
"You haven't told him? Maria? Qrow?"
"Maria and Qrow have no idea. To my knowledge, only Miss Schnee, yourself and I have the full picture."
"Miss Schnee?"
Oscar coughed, moved his hands away from the cane that he'd placed them both on. When reminded of the merge he became uncomfortable enough to let things go, sometimes.
"Sorry, we're both trying to avoid it, but, well, very hard to fight something you don't understand."
"I know."
"Like the grief of losing a child, for instance."
Not letting it go this time, then. Damn.
"Why haven't you or Weiss told him? Why hasn't Weiss told anyone?"
Oscar raised an eyebrow.
"You put very little confidence in Weiss' faith in you, you know."
The image of her slamming a door in his face as he god-awfully attempted to serenade her came to mind.
"Somehow I doubt that." Jaune muttered.
"Uh huh." Oscar smirked, the first thing he'd done that seemed entirely Oscar and not Oz-car.
"Talk to the man Jaune, put both of your ghosts to rest. Though, maybe have a stiff drink first. Vacuoan courage and all that. Just don't take it to the levels of Qrow or Willow."
Jaune elected not to mention the nights he'd spent pleasantly drunk on the wine the paper pleasers had made expressly for him, before he'd forbade them from making any more after a bad spillage had nearly killed one and he'd woken up late too many times.
"Fine, fine. I'll do it tomorrow."
Tomorrow, as it happened, came a week later. Pestered by Oscar and uncertain of how long Weiss' silence on the details would hold, Jaune downed some fruity spirits at a local bar and texted Whitely on the quiet about borrowing a Schnee-company bullhead.
So now he stood, in the lab of Dr. Polendina, in front of the man whose daughter he had murdered, having never felt so awful before in his life.
"Maria said you wanted to talk to me?"
The oxygen mask on his chair was at his face constantly now, Polendina's voice instead coming from speakers in his chair by way of a microphone in the mask, but the smooth, kindly tone from the man never wavered. Even now, with everything, he was trying to be kind.
The chill of the rock at the base of Amity ran up Jaune's spine. Or maybe it was just Penny's ghost cursing him.
"It- It's about Penny."
Somehow Polendina smiled wider, despite the tears that came to his eyes.
"I thought it might be."
Jaune's lips went to form words but failed. Failed again, and again, his jaw began to ache from everything he wasn't saying.
Polendina just smiled at him, giving him time. Jaune's legs went slack and he leaned against a hard-light workbench to stay upright.
"It- Cinder, she- Penny wanted-"
Jaune's tears started to flow.
"She was hurt- hurt bad, real bad, and Cinder was on us and I couldn't- I tried to stop her, Weiss tried to hold her off, Weiss tried so hard-"
Polendina was still silent.
Jaune drew Crocea Mors. Even when it had been rusted, the blood stains on the blade had been unmistakable. Now, renewed to before he'd fallen, they were abundant.
Jaune Arc fell to one knee, presenting the weapon to the man.
"Penny asked me to let her- She wanted to choose, she begged me to- to-"
A hand closed around his, and Jaune looked up to a teary-eyed Polendina.
"Winter told me. Penny became a part of her, after all."
The knot in Jaune's gut clenched. He knew that the man in front of him had murdered his daughter.
"My daughter trusted you, Jaune Arc. The people that loved, still love her trust you. Winter, and the part of her that is my Penny trust you. That is enough for me."
The tears in Jaune's eyes stopped in shock, but he had to get the last few words out.
"I am so, so sorry."
"I know son. I am too."
They stayed like that for a minute, Jaune on one knee, eyes closed, letting the last of his tears fall as the older man kept his grip firm on his hand.
Then the moment passed, and Jaune stood to leave.
"One moment, young man."
The Rusted Knight in him nearly ignored Polendina. Jaune hadn't been 'young' in a long time.
Yet here he was, again.
"Y-Yes?"
Polendina hadn't taken his hand off of Crocea Mors.
"I doubt Penny would be happy about me letting you go off to fight Grimm with a weapon in that shape, my boy. Let me see if I can't work a little more Polendina magic with these old bones."
"Sir, I can't ask-"
Polendina, despite his laboured breaking and small speakers, cut him off.
"You aren't asking. I'm telling. Maybe a few upgrades, too. I worked your shield over pretty good last time, but I didn't spend time on that sword, too busy with the others, and it's suffered for it. It's shattered along a fault line I should've noticed, last one who worked on it didn't reforge the two metals together correctly… Hm, could reforge the blade from the fault up, add a conversion function, maybe work something in from an old design I had for Maria… Yes, yes, that'd do nicely."
"Just, no guns, please."
Polendina looked up, his mind de-focussing from his work.
"I'm sorry?"
"My aim, it… sucks, and hollow barrel would only weaken the blade more than it already is so…"
Polendina nodded.
"I have a few ideas. Grab an apron, as a designer I am still unmatched, but…"
The man grinned and knocked on his own chest lightly, the four-legged chair he was stuck in turning toward his drawing bench.
"My smithing days are long behind me, and you have a lot to learn."
A/N: I'd intended to make this longer but I'm already past my self-imposed weekly update plan (Damn working all weekend.) and it's far larger than the other two so far. Thought I'd shift focus and give some insight as to what Neo-rrha? Pyreo? Is walking into, and give a little agency to the other characters.
This one, like the other two, needs a little polishing but I'd rather have it up and edit it later than not stick to the schedule, for those who're still with me thank-you! I look forward to feedback. Hopefully you like longer chapters because now I'm past the hurdle of focussing entirely on Pyrrha's re-awakening I can play with more characters and have more fun, and more content per chapter.
I 'should' have another chapter up sometime this week, gods permitting. I am working on spreading to AO3, so bear with me!