Work Text:
Weiss Schnee is a lot of things.
She is a daughter. The granddaughter of a hero and the child of a villain, to be precise. Her family name has haunted her like a plague for her entire life, the symbol of her semblance has always reminded her of the hereditary blood that runs through her veins. At one point she was ashamed of being a Schnee, but now she is once again proud. She will make the name mean something good again, even if it is the last thing she does.
She is a sister. There are people waiting out there, on the other side, for her still. Weiss doesn’t know how time is progressing—or even if it is—on Remnant, but she knows that no matter what, her family is still out there. Winter is fulfilling her duty, her calling and Whitley is struggling onward and trying to find himself again, but even still both of them are waiting for her to return, no matter how bad things get. And she will return to them, when finally this world releases its grip on her and her friends.
She is a survivor. A survivor of the Fall of Beacon, a citizen of the city of Atlas that fell just the same. She has faced death in the eye time and time again, pushed against the odds, and stood up for what is right. Hasn’t she? How could she call herself a survivor if not for the countless battles that she has weathered and lived through. Forbidden knowledge nestles into her head each day, a battle that rages on and on and yet still she survives. She’s not dying now.
She is a believer. She believes in those around her, trusts in their decisions and guidance because she knows, in her heart of hearts, that she believes in them wholeheartedly. Winter, her team, Ruby, they are all close to her because she knows them. Because she knows that they can have her back, can pick her up when she falls. She knows that they will always be there for her, and she believes that, together, they can fix everything.
She is a huntress. Her status has come into question a few times, what with the collapse of the city she was meant to protect and the simple fact that she is, as far as the public is concerned, completely dead. But even so, the white-hot fury of righteousness burns through her, calling and tugging at her from every direction, telling her she was born to protect those that cannot protect themselves. She will never shy away from that calling.
What Weiss would like to say is that she is also a friend. But as rose petals drift gently through the wind, leaving a rapidly-decaying trail behind, Weiss feels like anything but.
She reaches a hand out, her heart beating fast and telling her that no, this is wrong, it’s all so wrong…but even she can’t catch what is already gone. And it’s her fault for not noticing that it was leaving in the first place.
Because it was leaving. She had been leaving for a very, very long time now, hadn’t she? Fluttering ever away for who knows how long at this point. Weiss had seen it firsthand, had even recognized that something was wrong. But she pushed it away with everything else, hoping that they’d get around to it when things finally made sense again.
They never did. Because things still don’t make sense and now Weiss’s heart is split in two and her hand is hanging in the air, alone, and it’s too late to do anything. It’s too late. Maybe they never will get a chance to get around to it now.
Everything had clicked the moment she saw Ruby’s eyes fill with tears. She had recognized the glinting of the sunlight reflecting on droplets that she had resolved in herself to never see on Ruby’s face again.
“Jaune,” she had said, pleaded, her voice almost cracking under the weight of everything coming down at once. The dam behind them had broken on impact, and now it felt like the water that rushed in after was within her now, flooding through her body and making everything feel hazy. Blurry.
Her eyes had softened, wanting so badly for Jaune to step away, to understand what it was they were trying to tell him. She just wanted him to back up, even just a step, away from the situation that they were in, and reflect on everything. She was focused on him.
She was focused on him.
But, all the same, she had known in that same moment that Ruby was cracking too. That soon, she wouldn’t be able to withstand the pressure and would burst, and Weiss didn’t know what would happen then. But she focused on Jaune, focused on the “unstable” one, because she still believed Ruby. She still believed Ruby’s lies that she was “fine” and “okay.”
Had Ruby ever told her those things here? Was Weiss just so stupid that she didn’t even notice whenever Ruby would’ve hesitated? Or did she just ignore the signs because she didn’t want to believe them?
Weiss doesn’t remember. And now it doesn’t matter. The roses disappear over the horizon and there is silence.
It’s Yang who sighs and bows her head first, taking that first step and saying, “Let’s go after her.” Weiss drops her hand, everything swirling and coalescing in her mind. Ruby’s not okay. She knows that now, should’ve known it forever ago. But still, it’s disbelief that settles in her stomach.
Ruby was always okay. That’s just who she was, wasn’t it?
Did Weiss even know who Ruby was? Outside of the pained smiles and tired eyes, did Weiss know who Ruby was?
Their search is less of a search and more of a plea. The only sounds are the shuffling of feet and the constant shouts of “Ruby! Ruby?” It’s exhausting because Weiss can’t think of anything but how badly she failed her. How badly she failed her partner.
Ruby was all alone. And it was because of her.
She was the one who kept brushing Ruby off, she was the one who was so caught up in her own problems that she hadn’t even noticed, she was the one who left her partner behind over and over again for her own reasons, it was her who should’ve been there. She said once that she’d be the best teammate she could ever be. That she’d be a partner Ruby could be proud of.
Weiss hadn’t even tried.
There were plenty of reasons. Plenty of excuses, plenty of rationalizations that she could pretend held any merit in her mind. Her city, her home, was on the verge of collapse. She had been returned to the place she had tried so hard to leave in the first place. She had focused so much on her because it was her who had the most to lose.
None of it mattered. Not anymore, at least, because Ruby was gone and all that was left was a hole in her heart and the awful taste rising in her mouth. She was going to be sick. It was all going to come up at once in the same way it had all bared down on Ruby’s back and suddenly she wouldn’t be able to stand it.
Was this how Ruby felt? Was this constant panic, this chronic overthinking, even a fraction of what Ruby dealt with each and every day? Was it easy for Ruby to forge onward with a false smile because if she let even a single crack shine through she would shatter into a million tiny pieces? Because that’s how Weiss felt right now, but even then she couldn’t imagine what it would be like if that pressure was as much external as it was internal.
It would be torture. Oh gods. She must’ve been torturing Ruby every day. It must have hurt Ruby so much every time Weiss brushed off a silent plea or a broken smile. It must have eaten away at her, wearing her down day by day like some sort of vitriolic poison.
“Dammit,” Yang sighs, interrupting the bullet train of thoughts running through Weiss’s head and the cries of her partner’s name that still fall from her lips. Weiss turns, her eyes still unfocused and she can feel how she’s not all there. “How could she just run off like that?”
Weiss startles a little, her arms falling limp by her sides. Did Yang still not get it? Did she not understand that it was them who pushed Ruby far past her tipping point and still insisted on moving on, putting everything off until suddenly it all shattered at once? Did she not understand that it was Weiss who wasn’t there for her partner when she needed her most?
“She was clearly upset,” Blake reasons, and Weiss realizes that neither of them understand at all. Upset? People who are upset don’t disappear into the woods they barely know after having a breakdown and suffering through some sort of physical trauma Weiss couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
Broken people do.
“That wasn’t upset!” Yang cries, her arms emphatic as she tries to grasp just what the hell’s going on. “That was—” she stops, fumbling for words and crying out in frustration. Blake goes to her side, as she has always done, and never before has Weiss felt so alone in her entire life.
The empty halls and deafening silence of the Schnee manor couldn't hope to hold even a single candle to the feeling Weiss feels now. She is alone even with the people who are supposed to be with her right now, and it is her own fault.
“She could’ve just talked to us,” Yang says, her voice a little broken and her eyes almost pleading. When she turns to Weiss, she isn’t so sure what Yang expects. Could Yang even begin to fathom just how broken Ruby is right now? Or can she still only see her sweet little sister who is always cheerful and smart beyond her years.
“Maybe she didn’t feel like she could,” Weiss responds, almost cold. She doesn’t feel much of anything anymore. Just the loss in her chest and the aching in her heart. She turns, staring down at the paper snow and knowing what it feels like to be alone. “Ruby has always been the one to get us through hard times…We say things like ‘We believe in you,’ ‘We can count on you.’”
Weiss feels sick again. How many times had Ruby, decaying away on the inside and desperate for someone to help her, put on a brave face and accepted those words? How many times had Weiss plunged that knife deeper and deeper into her heart, believing them to be comforting? All they ever were were reminders that Ruby had no choice, weren’t they?
“I know we mean well,” Weiss accepts, trying her best to reason with herself. She should’ve known, yes. It’s her job to know these things. She’s supposed to be the best teammate, and the best partner, ever. But was it even her fault if she didn’t mean those words to be a poison to Ruby’s soul? “But…”
Yes, Weiss decides. It is her fault all the same.
“It’s not like we were asking her to be perfect,” Yang mutters, turning to Blake with a question in her eyes. Weiss looks down, afraid that if Yang glances back she’ll see the truth. She’ll see that that’s all they ever did.
‘Weren’t we?’ hangs heavy in the air like a smoke that can never be cleared. That’s all they had ever asked of Ruby, the entire time they’d known each other. That’s all Weiss had come to know.
It’s silly, thinking about it now. It’s so obvious. Of course that wasn’t Ruby. How could it be? No human could survive that sort of pressure, that sort of expectation that they could always be relied on and would forever be there for whatever was needed. No one could survive the burden of being perfect.
Weiss sure hadn’t. She had tossed it away long ago after her father had broken her one too many times. She had been forced to bear the mantle of perfection simply because it was expected of her, and she broke away as soon as she could.
Oh gods. Oh gods she did the same thing to Ruby. She did the same thing to her partner that her father did to her.
The ring of gunshots.
Weiss looks up, her heart jumping in her throat for more than one reason. She shelves the feelings, all of them, because they can wait until later. They can wait until Ruby is back, safe in her arms again.
Weiss is the first to move. Forever she will be, even if someday it is the last thing she does. Because no one needs her like Ruby needs her right now. Because Weiss wants so, so badly to make sure that Ruby knows that Weiss never wanted to expect that of her. She wants Ruby to know that she could break, that it would be safe to break, as long as Weiss could help her piece herself back together.
Her feet carry her before her mind catches up. Her glyphs are already forming, creating a trail towards the sounds of explosions and destruction, each one rocking Weiss to her core. She needs to get there, she needs to be there. For her partner, for her friend, for her Ruby, Weiss needs to run.
And so she does, barely recognizing the sounds of her teammates and Jaune keeping up with her, barreling through the paper landscape together because they all know that if they aren’t there now, they might never get another chance. They might never be able to pick up the pieces if they are too late. They might lose Ruby forever, and it will be all their fault.
It will be all her fault.
A bridge. Another acre. Jaune calls something out but Weiss isn’t even close to listening. If it was important, Blake and Yang would’ve caught it. They still don’t understand what Weiss knows.
Ruby is at her lowest point. Blake doesn’t want to believe it because she’s so used to running for survival and Yang doesn’t see it because she doesn’t want to believe that Ruby could be so broken. But Weiss does. Weiss knows. She knows well. Ruby is alone, and simply that thought is scarier than anything Weiss has ever faced.
She will never forgive herself if she’s too late.
A clap of thunder, a flash of lightning, a purple rain that patters of of Weiss’s skin but leaves nothing behind. The forest here is dark, withered and black like death. The leaves are ashes on the forest floor, the branches lay bare. Weiss runs a little faster, because she will never let Ruby die in a place as dark as this.
Blake calls something this time, grabbing Weiss’s attention and pointing her in a direction. Good. Weiss can see that the look in Blake’s eyes is beginning to grow desperate. She’s beginning to understand that the sounds of battle they’re hearing are not caused by any sort of low-scale scuffle.
Ruby is fighting for her life right now.
Weiss isn’t there to save her.
A building. A mansion. There’s a hold blasted into one side, obvious even from so far away. Weiss’s focus shifts, her glyphs shooting out before her and carrying her directly to the side of the building. She hadn’t even noticed the sky was so dark, but it’s a good reflection of how empty she feels right now.
Fear is black. It is pitch darkness gripping at her soul and tugging her away from anything rational. She ignores her feelings and she ignores her brain when the fear encloses itself within her chest. Right now, she is far beyond that point. She is more than terrified, and she can’t help but feel like everything is not going to turn out okay.
Weiss spins, not waiting for permission from those behind her. She trusts them to be hot on her heels. She runs through the hole in the side of the mansion, glancing around quickly and taking as much in as possible. She needs to know the layout if she’s about to be launched into another fight.
She needs to know…
She needs to help…
She needs to be there…
Ruby Rose is a lot of things.
She is a daughter, left behind by a mother that left her with too little and left alone by a father that lost too much. She is a sister, cherished by the Yang Xiao Long that stands behind Weiss and stares at the scene, her eyes already wide with sudden knowing. She is a survivor, someone who forges on, bearing scrape after scrape and wound after wound, facing forward always.
She is a believer. A believer in the good of this world, a believer that things will work out if they just try. She trusts wholeheartedly and guards that trust from those that she fears would abuse it. She’s even a little disillusioned at times, historically being quite the optimist. Weiss isn’t so sure that optimist still exists anymore.
She is, above all, a friend. The greatest friend one could ever ask for. She is Weiss’s teammate, she is Weiss’s partner, she is such an integral part of Weiss’s life that Weiss knows she never wants to imagine what it would be like without her. She already lived a small portion away, and she wishes every day that she hadn’t.
Is Ruby broken now because Weiss let herself be dragged away back then?
Is she lying on the floor, battered and defeated, because Weiss wasn’t there for her during that crucial moment? Or did the moment come later, when Weiss was reunited with her but it didn’t matter because she didn’t care enough to notice? Perhaps it was a large amount of little moments, all adding up to a whole that spelled out that Ruby could never be expected to be okay.
Not after everything they’ve been through.
Weiss leaves out the “together” she wishes she could attach to the end because, truthfully, has she ever been there at all? Just how long has Ruby been alone, facing a world that wanted her dead? How long has she been crying for help, ignored by those closest to her? How many times has she been left behind?
Ruby Rose looks up with those eyes, those beautiful, silver eyes. They look so dead now. So cold, the warmth beaten right out of them, evidenced by the cuts marring her skin, the blood staining her clothes. She is broken, and Weiss was not quick enough to gather the pieces.
Ruby picks up the cup.
Weiss would like to say that everything slammed together right here, that she grasped what exactly was happening right in this very moment. But she didn’t. She looks on with wide eyes and a quivering bottom lip and a feeling of helplessness the same as when Ruby was first thrown off the bridge that brought them here.
The same as when Weiss felt Atlas fall, the city collapsing under the weight of itself. The same as when Winter told them to leave, that they were getting a head start. The same as when she watched Ruby race up the side of that damned tower. Weiss hadn’t even thought that Ruby would never return. She trusted her.
But Ruby hadn’t returned. Even if Weiss had traveled to Argus and on to Atlas with “Ruby,” it hadn’t been the same Ruby that she watched run up the side of Beacon Tower. She had never been the same, not really.
Weiss regrets not realizing it sooner. Ruby raises the cup to her lips.
Everything is wrong. Everything is so wrong, it’s all breaking and crumbling and falling down and Weiss can’t breathe, she can’t understand what’s happening, and she can’t do anything. Weiss watches, helpless, as Ruby gulps down the liquid that Weiss knows, knows, will take her away forever. But Ruby looks so exhausted, so broken inside, that Weiss lets her.
She. Can’t. Move.
And she’ll regret it for the rest of her life.
Because then Ruby is falling back, her poor, spent body finally resting, going completely limp. Her eyes are fluttering, growing blanker by the moment. Her arms hit the floor and she’s staring at nothing, the weapon that she carries on one side and the cup that was offered to her on the other.
But Ruby drank it willingly.
Ruby was offered a choice. An opportunity to fade away. An offer to finally, finally be free of everything that was expected her. Free from the obligations, the failures, the pain. She drank from that cup knowing that she would perhaps never return.
And it was Weiss who pushed her to that point. A hole opens up in the ground, and Ruby Rose is gone. Slipped away of her own volition.
Ruby looked at her as she drank that tea. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Weiss Schnee is a lot of things.
But never before has she been so broken and alone.