Hey guys, I honestly never thought this day was going to come. The next chapter is finally here, and there's a long story as to why it took so long to get here. Sadly I haven't heard from Adam in months, and I really didn't want to upload a chapter without him. But I think after months of writing him and asking whats going on, and not getting any replies. I would just post the ones I have written so far... But anyone who has read my stuff knows that I desperately need an editor to make my stuff readable. And I got the funniest guy on this site to help me out. I am super happy to have the help of Anonymous Prick 3! He has made some of my favorite short stories about Blake and Weiss. And if you want a really good\different story, you should check out his main work. Lunar Rose! You wont regret it!

Chapter 18 Are We Going To Be Alright

'Are you coming back to the room?'

…

…

'Not yet, I'm still waiting.'

…

'Man, I feel like ours didn't take this long.'

...

'You're telling me. I don't mind though, this way I can make sure I say the right thing. Ya know?'

…

'You got this Sun! Just make sure to get back here before too late! We're still leaving early and you haven't packed! And don't think Scarlet or I are going to do it for you!"

...

'I got this man, all I need is two pairs of jeans and a few shirts. You guys don't need to worry about it.' Sun typed before he put his scroll back into his pocket, he knew once Neptune read his last text all of his clothes would be nicely packed and ready for him when he got back to his dorm. Now all he had to do was continue to wait for Blake.

"Any Questions?" Ozpin asked as he looked at the eight students sitting in front of him.

He was met with silence and stared back at the students for a moment before speaking again.

"Very well, you may go. Team JNPR will be departing with team SSSN, but the four of you will stay here until tomorrow morning ." The regal Headmaster explained, gesturing towards the colorful bunch of girls who made up team RWBY.

"And Ms. Schnee, a moment of you time, alone, if you will. " He added as the Heiress made to follow after her teammates, who had turned around when the man addressed their Schnee.

"We'll meet up at the dorms!" Ruby stated.

"Of course." Weiss replied, turning to nod at Ruby in confirmation. With a timid smile, she moved away from Blake's side and returned to her desk. She watched the grey-haired man patiently wait for the room to clear out.

"What did you need, Professor?" Weiss asked calmly once the solid thud of the heavy wooden door faded away into silence.

"I received a call from your father today." Ozpin said as he slowly walked over to a counter in the room to refill his cup, which had run dry some time ago. "He wanted me to inform you that he will be here within a few hours since you seem to be avoiding his calls."

"Oh..." Weiss wasn't sure if she had physically folded in on herself or if she just did in her mind.

"He was very vocal about his need to speak with you. I am sure this isn't the best news for you to hear at the moment but I thought I would give you the heads up. You have some time before he comes so if you wish to pack before he get here then I suggest you start now." Ozpin explained, nonchalantly making a hand gesture that urged her to heed his words and leave the room.

Weiss just sat there for a few more seconds; she wasn't exactly sure how much time had past but it was long enough for Ozpin to begin other work, typing away at his scroll.

When she got up to leave he didn't even look up from his desk, after all, he couldn't risk her seeing his eyes at the moment. Ozpin didn't raise his head until Weiss' own head, which was hung in despair, was out of sight. "I have just sent these children to their deaths." He quietly mumbled to himself, a steel edge to his voice.

"I'm so sorry." Sun apologized yet again as he continued to walk the halls of Beacon with her. It wasn't how he planned it to go at all, the guilt that ate away at him with every step was especially never considered.

"Yes, I know, you started sounding like a broken record about five apologies ago." Blake quipped at Sun's tenth official apology. She didn't mean to come off so cold, but she didn't want him to cheap shot her again.

"You're right!" Sun exclaimed in exasperation as he stopped dead in his tracks, taking Blake's hand into his own. She was about to yank her hand right out of his but stopped when she saw his face.

Before her was Sun Wukong, but yet, he was so much more. He was the familiar face that had been there for her when she tried to run away, as well as the ever present friend waiting patiently for her to return his feelings who had accompanied her to the dance, grin threatening to rip his face in half every step of the way there. And right now, he was a friend in pain. Not physical pain, but emotional pain over what he had done.

"Blake, I didn't mean what I said to you! I would love to blame it on me finding out about your ears! To say that as a Faunus something in me changed and I couldn't deal with what had happened to you." Sun began, eyes unwavering as Blake's own locked with his; she refused to stare at the ground idly again.

"But that's not the main reason why I acted out... Blake, I thought we had something, I mean maybe I'm crazy but didn't we?!" Sun asked, a bit of desperation creeping into his words, and finally, some of the guilt that had been consuming him was lifted. Unfortunately, it landed on Blake.

"Sun, it's not that simple."

"I know... and I know you and Weiss... well, you guys seem happy. I just want to know that I wasn't crazy, that I didn't make up this big scenario where we might have become a thing." Sun asked as he still held Blake's hand in his, his voice dying down to a whisper.

"Sun..." She replied, her own voice just as quiet.

"Please Blake." The vulnerability in his voice was gut wrenching, he truly was wearing his heart on his sleeve for this conversation.

"Yes..." Blake ultimately admitted, slowly taking her hands out of his. "I did feel something for you Sun, but..." She trailed off, unable to finish her thoughts.

"But not how you feel for Weiss." Sun finished for her, his voice firm, along with other emotions that were too mixed to discern.

"Yes... I'm sorry." Blake apologized, eyes finally leaving his; she couldn't look at him, too afraid of what she'd see.

"Hey, don't be." Sun whispered, turning her face gently so she was looking back at him, an obviously pained smile adorning his face. "She's pretty awesome, for a Schnee." He added playfully, along with a wink.

Caught off guard, she could only gape at him in silence, and eventually, Sun picked up the slack.

"Are we going to okay, Blake?"

This time, her answer came to mind quickly.

"Yeah, I think we might be."

Weiss wasn't entirely sure how long she had been wondering around, but her sore feet suggested it was quite a while.

Her father was going to be here any minute now and she was going to have to finally talk with him for the first time since she came to Beacon.

Even if it had been months since she'd talked with her father, she still knew exactly how their meeting was going to go down. He would ask how her grades were and no matter what she answered he would then ask why they weren't better. Then he would proceed to explain why her being here was a waste of time and money.

Weiss froze on the spot, dread growing on her face as a single thought echoed in her mind.

'The picture...'

Weiss had to actively stop herself from shivering in fear as she realized the true reason her father was coming to see her. She had almost forgotten about that damned picture of her and Blake kissing that had been taken on the day of her kidnapping; a nice start to a terrible day.

'Think on the bright side.' Weiss tried to encourage herself, She needed to start packing her clothes for the mission. Any busy work that could clear her mind before she was forced into contact with her family would be dearly appreciated.

"The bright side... the bright side... there has to be some bright side to this right?" She asked herself in exasperation, any thoughts of preparing for her mission quickly making themselves scarce.

Weiss couldn't believe it; she couldn't think of a single thing that could be tucked away into 'the Bright Side.' Thinking on it further, the only time one could associate her father with a good anything was if you were a businessman as heartless as him presenting him an opportunity to cut corners.

Before she could further drown herself in the thought of seeing her family again, the white-haired girl arrived at what she had, at some unknown point, lovingly dubbed her new home. And as she stood outside of her dorm room, she could easily hear Ruby and Yang laughing about something. Just hearing the two sisters interacting with each other was enough to bring a small smile to her lips. She wished she could have had a relationship like the two of them had.

The Heiress would've given up all the money in the world for it, but at the moment, all she had was the relationships she had painstakingly made with them, but it wasn't very hard to accept them as one of the few true friends she had had for the longest time.

The very thought made the small smile on her face grow a little bigger, they were true friends. They were her friends.

Weiss walked into the room quietly, not intending to sneak in, but to preserve the jovial ambiance the two sisters had in each other's presence. Unfortunately, Weiss was in fact, not Blake, and the two half-sisters noticed her presence in mere moments.

"Hey Weiss, what did Ozpin want to talk to you about for so long?" Yang asked, casually packing away clothes in a manner that Weiss' father would only label, "inefficient."

"He told me that my father is coming today." The pony-tailed girl remarked, still standing by the door, feeling as if she needed permission to enter the room any further.

"Ooh, that sucks." Yang hissed, throwing the last of her clothes into her suitcase before heading off to the bathroom, presumably to get some necessities for the mission. The rest of team RWBY knew that Weiss wasn't on the best of terms with her family, but no one had found the appropriate opportunity to broach the subject, and even Ruby, with her social ineptitude, knew better than to bluntly ask her outright.

"When will he get here?" The redhead asked as she started to make her way to the door.

"I think he'll be arriving shortly." Weiss whispered as she watched her leader walk right up to her.

"Well you should probably be there to greet him." Ruby stated simply.

"Yeah… you're right." The Heiress timidly admitted, her body slow to turn as she did just that.

"Can I come with you?"Ruby had asked in a quiet voice that mimicked her own.

"What?" Weiss asked as she quickly turned to face the cloak-clad girl, eyes widened in evident shock.

"Can I walk with you to meet your dad?" Ruby reiterated.

Weiss was taken back to say the least, but seeing the younger girl boldly repeat the request without an ounce of hesitation inspired Weiss a bit herself.

"I don't know, can you? If you decide you can, you may; I most certainly wouldn't mind the company." Weiss said with a smile as the two left the room.

"Yup, a few days at the beach will do me some good." Sun thought aloud, his arms holding the back of his head as the duo made their way to one of the more secluded part of the schools grounds. "Kill some grimm and then chill out under the sun for a few days. You ask me? I think this is going to be a nice few days. Where's your team heading anyways?"

"We'll be out closer to Atlas, so I'll be packing a few extra layers instead of a bathing suit." Blake replied, masking a tinge of envy as she internally weeped at the loss prospect of a mission spent in sunny bliss. "I'm pretty sure if they are pulling us from school, we probably won't have too much time to enjoy ourselves."

"Well, you can always use Yang to make you a sauna." Sun suggested, stopping for a moment. "Hey, Blake, what does it feel like?" He asked sheepishly. "Your ears, I mean... Do you feel different?"

Blake just stood there for a few moments, mulling over how she felt about the question. She wasn't angry with him for asking, after all, if the shoe had been on the other foot, she would have been wondering the same thing.

She could remember curiosity about the subject since her earliest childhood memories, not quite the earliest, but the time around when she was seven years old and just starting to ask questions about the rules of the world she had been born into. She had even asked her parents once why they didn't do it, as far as Blake could remember that was one of the only times they had ever got angry with her... only if they could see her now.

"They still hurt..." She replied, pausing to steel her voice and assure herself that her voice wouldn't crack. "It's almost like they are just hovering above a candle, just close enough to feel the heat. Sometimes it's not that bad… other times, it burns, badly... it's always worse at night." Blake admitted the morbid truth just as they sat themselves down on a curb.

"Do you think it'll stop when they grow back completely?" Sun's voice was hushed, the taboo of the subject still instilling the need to keep the noise to a minimum.

"I hope so, but... did you ever hear those stories about people who did this when you were little?"

Sun took a few seconds to try and pull some of his childhood memories to the surface.

"Yeah, most of the time in the stories people said that... Well, it doesn't really matter, they were just stories, right?" The blonde asked as he remembered how most of the stories ended.

"The pain never stopped in those stories." Blake said as she looked at her friend, too many emotions fighting for dominance in her eye to identify any individual one.

"It always got worse and worse, and between the pain and the humiliation, most of the time they took their own life just so it would stop." The golden eyed girl continued, her voice deceptively calm.

"Yeah, but that was just to scare little kids so they wouldn't do it. You'll be fine Blake, I know it." Sun assured her, opting to give her what he knew was his most reassuring smile.

"Right." Blake grumbled as she rose up from the ground. "I think we should probably head back now."

Despite the words of her friend, she knew that they were more than just stories, after all, the truth was constantly drilled into her head. Every night, when she would wake up from a nightmare about being shamed, she knew. Every time she ran her head under cold water to try and stop the burning, she knew. But Sun didn't need to know, she also knew that he needed to believe she was going to be okay. But she knew, she knew from the instant that they were cut off that she was never going to be whole again. But, no one else need to.

The walk was a little awkward, to say the least. It wasn't often that Ruby was this quiet, and Weiss never thought that she'd find herself wishing for Ruby to talk about anything, but now it seemed to be up there on the list of all things she'd do anything for.

"Are you ready for the mission?" Weiss asked, a poor attempt to break the ice, she'd admit.

"Yeah, it'd be nice to fight Grimm, the things I signed up to fight, instead of the White Fang, for a change. Sheesh, when did that become the norm anyways, right?"

'The White Fang.' Weiss bitterly repeated in her head. She personally felt she had heard the word enough for at least ten life times.

"You're telling me," she agreed wholeheartedly, nodding her head before she allowed the awkward silence to creep back into the conversation. Not wanting to lose any more momentum, she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.

"Will we be okay, Ruby?" The Heiress flinched slightly at the confused face her leader sent her.

"I know we haven't really been on the same page lately and that could spell disaster in the field." She calmly explained.

"Well, Weiss, you know there's an easy way for us to get back on the same page." Ruby drawled, both of the girls looking dead ahead as they kept up their slow pace.

"Ruby..."

"Weiss, I'm not going to force you to tell me something you aren't comfortable with, but we're going on a dangerous mission tomorrow and whatever feelings we may be having need to stay here at Beacon because once we get on that plane, it's not about us anymore, it's about the people we'll be protecting. So, yes, we might not be on the same page right now, but, I know for a fact, that out there, on the battlefield, what I might be feeling about you right now won't make a difference out there, because I'll always feel the need to protect my team, and I know you well enough to know that you feel the same, so let's get off the topic." Throughout the small speech, the shorter girl hadn't once turned to face Weiss, and her words remained passively firm, conveying just how much she meant every word.

"You're right, Ruby."

While Weiss would admit that she often found her team leader a bit too immature at times, and admittedly, annoying as well, she frequently had to remind herself that she had once felt Ruby wasn't fit to be the leader of team RWBY. It was moments like these, that time and time again, reminded Weiss that Ruby was a lot stronger of a person than she could conceive, and more than deserving of the role as her team leader.

"I am sorry, Ruby."

"I know, Weiss." The redhead said, finally looking at her, only for a smile to be plastered on her face. Weiss returned the smile, full force, though hers didn't last nearly as long, as her gaze soon focused behind the Reaper; specifically, her gaze focused on the three ships quickly closing the distance between them, the Schnee logo easily visible, proudly presented for all to see.

"He's here."