There were so very many things that Weiss hated about her father. She hated how he always had to be in control of everything. She hated how unwavering he was in his decisions once they were made. She hated how unfeeling he was, especially after her mother had passed and her sister had left. And most of all she hated his money. She hated how he thought that all of that money could somehow make up for how uncaring he was, how little understanding he had for how other people feel, especially Weiss.

But loathe as she was to admit it, she was grateful for that money now. It was the only thing keeping her housed and fed at this point. Without it, she wouldn't be able to afford to rent the house she had just moved into. She wouldn't be able to afford to pay someone to take care of her in her current state. She wouldn't even be able to put food onto her table.

She was glad to be out of the rehab center. It had been necessary in the immediate aftermath of her, accident, to stay there for a couple of weeks. Adjusting to her current condition had taken quite some time. And even at present she was still not comfortable with it. But she had to get out of there. Crippled as she might be, she had no desire to stay in such a place any longer than necessary. It only served to remind her of how weak she felt. How utterly powerless she was to stop him.

If there was one thing that Weiss could be thankful for, it was James. The ultimate employee of her father, James had been a butler for the Schnees for longer than Weiss could remember. He had served the family faithfully and gone far beyond the call of duty more times than any war hero could claim. If Weiss were to admit it to herself, James was more of a father to her than her actual father had ever been.

Today was her second day of living on her own. She couldn't help but notice how quiet it was without servants around. It left her feeling far more uneasy than she was willing to admit. James could only come by in the morning and the evening to help her with her meals. He had to keep up appearances at Schnee Manor after all.

The house felt a whole lot bigger to Weiss than it really was. Every sound she made echoed in the darkness that stretched out in front of her, further exacerbating how small she was feeling all by herself. When she had first moved in she had stood by the front door, flipping the lights on and off, hoping against hope that her eyes might be able to notice the difference, that it had all just been some kind of terrible dream.

When that had not worked, she had angrily switched the light off, knowing that she shouldn't be surprised by the development. This was what she deserved. There was no point in getting worked up over things beyond her control.

She was currently sitting in the room she had designated her bedroom, actually the dining room, wondering what she was supposed to do now. She had managed to create a general map of the house in her head, the task being incredibly easy due to how much smaller it was than the house she was used to. She could spend the rest of her day lying in bed, just as she had the day prior. But she was beginning to grow restless.

Her usual habit of pacing the halls to alleviate some of her pent up energy had been quickly snubbed when she had managed to walk into two separate walls, three times in rapid succession that very morning. The headache alone had been enough to deter her from any more unnecessary wandering, let alone the massive bruise her ego had taken.

All of that left her with nothing else to do but to sit about moping in a rather comfortable armchair that James had brought in for her. For all the things Weiss could and was complaining about in her head, the incredible softness of her chair was not one of them. She was almost starting to think that just sitting in her chair all day might not be the worst choice she could make. She was beginning to warm up to the idea of taking a well deserved afternoon nap when the unthinkable happened.

The doorbell rang.

What the hell was she supposed to do about that? Of all of the possible problems she had foreseen and accounted for given her situation, the thought that someone might come to her house was unthinkable. Who could possibly be at her door?

It couldn't be James because he wasn't supposed to be back before seven. There was no way it had gotten that late so quickly. And even then, James had a key. He would have let himself in and announced his presence. Why oh why did her life have to be harder than it already was?

Weiss fought with herself over the proper course of action. The rational, thinking part of her brain was telling her that under no circumstance should she try to answer the door in her current condition. There was no telling what might happen. The feeling part of her brain agreed with her reason. Why get up out of her comfy chair? The people would eventually go away and then she could take her nap.

But then there was her subconscious. The part of her that was all prim princess and proper manners. The part of her that had been both figuratively and, occasionally literally, beaten into her. The part of herself that she hated the most, but seemed most powerless to control. It was, of course, this part of Weiss that led her to cautiously find her way out of her room, into the hall, and towards the front door.

She knew that this was almost certainly going to be a mistake, that something terrible was going to happen when she opened the door. But despite that, she continued to inch her feet along the floor and her hand along the wall until finally she found the hard wood of her front door. Deciding that she would rather seem rude and play it safe, Weiss made sure to slip the deadbolt chain into place before unlocking the door and turning the knob.

Through the thin crack in the doorway, she knew that warm sunlight was pouring into an otherwise dusky house. She could feel its soothing rays on her bare arm. To her great disappointment, but with little surprise to Weiss, she could still not see any discernible difference in light levels with the door open. Again thoughts of the likelihood of her possibly never being able to see again began to resurface.

The possibility had been explained to her when she had first been admitted to the rehabilitation center. The doctors had told her in no uncertain terms that there was about a fifty percent chance of her never regaining her sight. The news had taken some time to sink in for the poor girl. At first, the news had glanced right off of her. Then, as time passed and Weiss had to start coping without the use of her most integral sense, she had begun to panic.

There had been a whole day where she couldn't bring herself to do anything but sit in her bed and cry into the bandages that had been wrapped to her face. She had allowed herself only that day to pity herself. After that, she held her head high, though still not quite as high as before. She had to be strong, she had to be brave, she didn't have a choice. She was all alone now. There was no turning back. She had to learn how to pick herself back up.

Summer had always though of herself as a rather introverted person. There's no doubt that she's the nicest person you could ever meet. It's simply not possible for anyone to think anything but the best of her. And she always thought the best of anyone she met. But if it were up to her, she wouldn't be meeting nearly as many people as she did.

Make no mistake, Summer's as friendly and cheerful as any one person can be, more so even. But it had taken her years, decades of practice to be able to act how she does. She couldn't count the number of nights she had spent in high school, looking at her reflection in the mirror, practicing how to speak to people, how to act. None of it came naturally for her.

But when she had heard that a new neighbor was moving in next door, she had felt almost obligated to welcome them to the neighborhood. After all, they were almost certainly going to be more than simple acquaintances, if the previous neighbors were any kind of example. So Summer did what did best, she baked a cake. Who could say no to a chocolate frosted confetti cake?

That had been the easy part. The hard part was convincing her lazy family, Oum love them, to come with her to welcome the new neighbors to town. Tai had been by far the easiest to convince. Just one activation of her feminine charms had him in a puddle on the floor. Her daughters, not surprisingly, had been a whole lot more stubborn

They both seemed rather down in the dumps when Summer spoke with them, which wasn't like them at all, especially for Yang. They both said something to the effect of, go away, when she entered their rooms and had emphatically refused to do anything that required leaving their rooms, much less the house. Summer knew how it felt to be a moody teenager, as though all of her problems were the end of her life as she knew it. But she also knew that all of that wasn't true at all.

Yang was won over in a matter of sentences. All she needed was the usual, your mother loves you very much and is so proud of everything you've done, speech. Not to say that parenting was formulaic or contrived, but, you know. Ruby on the other hand had been far more difficult. It seemed that her poor mood ran deeper than just a simple slump.

Summer's conversation with Ruby lasted nearly half and hour and when it was over, Summer still wasn't sure if it had really worked. Ruby had reluctantly agreed to come along with the rest of the family to meet the new neighbors. But even after their mother daughter heart to heart, Ruby still wouldn't tell her what seemed to be the matter. Summer let the matter be, promising herself that she would revisit it at a later date.

Summer told her uncooperative family that they were to dress nicely and meet her in the living room by three o'clock. She hoped that there would be someone home when they went over. Then again, not everyone had Sundays off. But at worst they would simply go by again later in the evening.

"Ruby, would you mind getting the cake out of the fridge?"

"Fine." Ruby did as her mother asked. The cake really had turned out very nice, not that Ruby was really able to appreciate it. It had been nearly a full day since her disappointing revelation that she had missed her chance and she was still feeling majorly bummed out.

If the feeling of worthlessness and self-loathing weren't so familiar, Ruby might have wondered why she cared so much. She encountered strangers everyday. She probably inconvenienced them just as much as she had that mysterious girl. If anything, she should be happy that she hadn't caused the girl to break an arm or kill a puppy; don't even ask.

Ruby had caused the girl undue strife, that much was abundantly clear to the cake-bearer. But what she continued to overlook as she kept revisiting the memory, over and over, was how the girl had reacted to her. Or more importantly, how the girl's reaction had been almost completely caused by something that Ruby still didn't know. Ruby could only focus on how she had screwed up, on all of the things she did wrong, on everything she should have done differently.

She had managed to blot out absolutely everything that wasn't some kind of criticism of herself. She could only give credence to the things she did wrong. It happened more often than she realized. She had a rather nasty habit of doing that. She also had a rather bad practice of not paying any attention to where she was or what she was doing.

"Yang, why don't you ring the doorbell."

"Why do I have to do it?" the blonde complained. "Dad's closer."

"Your father is carrying the basket, dear." Summer replied.

"Fine," Yang huffed as she stabbed her finger at the doorbell.

The family of four could here the doorbell echo inside the house. None of the lights were on and no other sounds could be heard from the house. The silence stretched on as the welcoming committee waited patiently for someone to come to the door. The quiet grew more awkward as almost a full minute passed without any change in the situation.

"Maybe they aren't home," Yang offered, turning to Summer and shrugging her shoulders.

"Maybe you're right," she replied, a frown starting to form on her face.

Then they finally did hear something. It was the sound of the lock. They heard the deadbolt move and then saw the doorknob turn. After a beat the door began to open slowly, swinging gently out but stopping just a handful of inches after it started.

The family all looked through the crack expectantly, then lowered their gaze to see a girl just about cowering behind the door, only sticking her head out a couple inches to peek through the doorway.

"Can I, help you with something?"

The girl's voice was small. Smaller even than her diminutive stature would suggest. But despite that, it was unwavering in its conviction.

"Hello, it's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Summer. This is my family. We saw that you just moved in and we just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood. Are your parents home by any chance?"

Instead of a reply, Summer was met solely with silence.

A silence that stretched on.

And on.

And on.

The girl gave no indication that she had heard the greeting, or was planning on giving a response.

Summer turned to her family and saw a similar sight. Yang and Ruby both stood flabbergasted, mouths hanging open. Tai looked as though he was seeing a ghost. The whole thing was beginning to make Summer feel uneasy.

She turned to face the barely open door once more only to watch as it slammed closed with a dull thud. What in the world had just happened?

Author's Note: Long time coming right? My bad. I'm struggling with stuff, not the least of which is where I want to take this story. If you have any suggestions or just want to yell at me for being so slow to update just leave me a message. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed this and I look forward to seeing you in the next chapter.