#ssarkosghost

[kinaesthetiqueer]

What These Hands Can Be

Rating: G

Words: 7,174

Pairing: Jaune Arc/Pyrrha Nikos

Characters: Jaune Arc, Pyrrha Nikos, minor Nora, Ren, RWBY, Oscar, Ozpin, Theodore, & Rumpole

Other Tags: Post Volume 9, set in Vacuo, alternating POV

Summary: Pyrrha barely knows what to do with her hands these days. She's been gone so long that everything, and everyone, is so different now. Even Jaune. Especially Jaune.

Author's note: My gift for @ssarkosghost for @remnants-of-rwby-exchange! I am so sorry that is a day late; please forgive me. I went to edit and accidentally added 3k... It is in its entirety below but the AO3 link will be by chapters.

gloved

Pyrrha spends a lot of time looking at her hands now.

Her nails are often chipped, bitten. When she was young, her mother had her wear gloves to curb the habit. They were just thick enough to keep her from nibbling the thin keratin to ragged edges. Mittens helped protect her young hands from bitter Argus winters when she wanted to build snowmen at the park. Garden gloves kept dirt from gathering under her nails as she worked alongside her mother in the tiny flowerbed their townhouse called its own. As she grew older, darker pairs helped to camouflage the tell-tale glow of her semblance in use, carefully hiding her critical advantage. Gloves, for one reason or another, have followed her throughout her life.

The desert is too hot for them.

Without them, Vacuan sands and wind roughen her palms beyond belief. Her callouses toughen, her fingertips thicken, and her palms crack, no matter how much moisturizer she applies after showers. There are other ways to minimize the damage, but to keep one’s aura shield engaged all the time outdoors was one of many marks of an outsider. Pyrrha shrinks at the thought of attracting even more attention.

Most people don’t recognize her these days anyway. Pyrrha runs her hands through her ponytail, much shorter than she remembers. It had been like when she’d emerged from the glowing golden portal, blinking and confused, stepping into what appeared to be a war room meeting of her closest friends and many unfamiliar adults.

“I’m sorry, I… I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Pyrrha had whispered into the silence, rubbing her throat. Her bare feet made little plap plap sounds on the cool sandstone as she took a few unsteady steps forward before stopping just out of reach of the closest person- a young, wide-eyed boy she didn’t recognize.

The portal shrunk, fizzled, and faded into oblivion while she struggled to remember why she’d just stepped into their midst. She fidgeted with the ends of her sash in her hands. Still, the urge to rub her throat remained, as if she needed to warm her voice box before speaking any more. 

The crying and screaming broke the silence first- Nora’s shrieks, Ruby’s choked sobs, Yang’s cracking voice. Then came the questions- Blake’s skepticism, Ren’s disbelief, Weiss’ caution.

Are you really Pyrrha?

Oh, of that, she was positively sure.

What happened to you?

She had died, that was somewhat evident by the scar tissue that twisted and stretched beneath the fabric of her loose linen dress and the horrifying memory of searing heat. Ruby had nearly vomited on the spot at her halting recollection of her death, gaze pinned to the [place that Pyrrha massaged at her collar.

Where have you been?

That question haunts her, even now, a little over two weeks later.

One year, eleven months, three weeks, and five days. The number rolled off Nora’s tongue quicker than it had any right to, but with such fury and despair that no one questioned its accuracy. That was how long it had been since the Fall of Beacon, since she’d been gone, how long she’d been dead to her friends. It’s a massive amount of time to be unaccounted for and unexplainably absent. It had taken a woman Pyrrha had never met to get them to all finally believe that she was herself, that she wasn’t some trick of the enemy or especially vivid group hallucination. 

It was when she’d taken Robyn Hill’s hand that she had first noticed she was no longer wearing her gloves. Robyn was wearing fingerless ones, much like Nora’s, but black. Robyn’s grip was firm, her soft smile reassuring.

“Just tell the truth,” she said.

There was not, and still is not, much to tell.

She’d died. There was nothing. Then there was golden light and they were staring at her. She was herself. She was alive. She didn’t know why her hair was cut or why she had a sash that should be ash, just as much as she should. She answered question after question until they sort of devolved into a distressed, hopeful argument about her existence.

At that point, with the truth told and nothing more for either of them to do, Robyn helped her sit in an extra chair to watch the proceedings. The action of sitting only made her realize how exhausted she was by the affair, even if she wanted nothing more than to be accepted into their fold again.

That being said, the results of their argument mattered little. Instead, Pyrrha finally dared to look over to the one person, out of friends and strangers, that had yet to say a word.

Jaune?

He stared at her, blue eyes wide. His hair was cut in an unfamiliar way and streaked with white that she didn’t remember. The lines around his eyes spoke to an age that shouldn’t be possible, but his haunted expression was more than just seeing his old partner back from the dead. That expression spoke volumes, though he did not.

“Hey,” Jaune says now, knocking on her open door “You ready to go?”

Pyrrha looks up from the creases in her palms, the unbroken lifelines and calloused fingertips, the bare nails and chapped knuckles. The tanned skin there is some of the only exposed skin she has. The rest of her is covered in brown, sheer compression arm and leg sleeves, a burgundy athletic romper, copper vambraces and greaves, and long boots and UV goggles, both suited for the sand. Her sash flows to her calves as she stands and reaches for Mellon and Tora, bringing them to her side with just a thought.

Her red gaiter hugs her neck, making it difficult for her to reach up and massage her throat. Jaune nods and turns into the hallway without a second thought though, so it’s not as if he needs to hear her say anything.

Pyrrha pulls the fabric up over her nose and follows Jaune without a word.

2. clenched

Pyrrha is dead.

Three words, one truth. Through the past years, it’s the one thing he has forced himself to believe and remember, despite the pain it causes. He had promised to fight in her memory, to do what she would have done. The tattered remnants of her extra sash always hug his waist, taut when he twists or bends and flaring out when he leaps or falls. Its flowing length reminds him that its owner lost her battle so that he might win a war. Isn’t that the truth of it? Such things are unchanging, immutable. Decades to reckon with that truth and now here it is undone, just as surely as his aching bones and rusted armor.

Pyrrha is back, Jaune thought when she stepped out of the glowing portal. Pyrrha is… alive?

Her bright green eyes, darting with uncertainty and anxiety, were as expressive as ever. Her hair was shorter, though still a ponytail in that same brilliant red. Her crown was absent, though its charms hung from her ears. With the white linen dress and her sash wrapped around her waist, she looked a bit mismatched, contrasting youth with a world weary frown he often saw in the mirror.

Two weeks and three days ago. 

Jaune’s own tally picks up where Nora’s left off. 

He can hear Pyrrha’s footsteps behind him as he winds his way through the cool hallways of the Shade Academy dorms. Her footsteps don’t sound like he remembers them, less assured. He tries not to listen and focuses on finding the way out. Another quirk of Shade was a particular aversion to exit signage; early on, it was helpful to stick with some of the other students, whether those from Vacuo or those who chose to attend Shade after the Fall. Now he’s that person for Pyrrha, leading her to the open common area that exits to the main campus.

I bet Pyrrha could probably just use a compass to get out.

His chuckle dies in his throat. No longer is it a hypothetical. What once might have been a bittersweet thought is a plausible reality.

Pyrrha is alive. She’s right there. Right behind me.

His thoughts echo her name relentlessly, a plea, a prayer, a petition. It’s caught between his ears in a way that he can’t force it past his lips. 

It’s a trick. It’s just another trick- Jaune swallows, closing his eyes briefly to steady himself. In his mind’s eye, he can see Pyrrha behind him, cruel joy in her emerald eyes, a self-satisfied smirk on her face. He can almost feel the pain of Miló slicing through the gaps in his armor again. 

No, it’s not. She’s here. We both are.

He takes a deep breath, holds it, and exhales. He hears Pyrrha step around him, approach his left side, and take a deep breath of her own.

“You… didn’t actually explain… what are we supposed to be doing?” Pyrrha murmurs, brushing against his side. The gesture can’t be more than an accident but suddenly it feels like every eye in the common area is on him and her, together.

He sidesteps, awkwardly covering the flinch by heading toward the doors again. He does remember the stilted text he’d sent; it’d taken nearly three hours to compose it.

> Need you ready for combat in fifteen. I’ll come by your room.

“Oh yeah, right. Headmaster Theodore got a transmission from a couple of miles out that a relay tower was damaged badly by the windstorm last night. He wants you to clear and organize the metal before someone actually fixes it.”

Jaune times his shove of the door with the end of his explanation and hopes that Pyrrha will not ask the obvious question. They step into the hot afternoon sun. Jaune squints, but Pyrrha just lowers her goggles over her eyes. She looks even more Vacuan than some of the townsfolk. While the so-called Beacon Brigade students, like teams CFVY and SSSN had to earn their respect at the ‘Skirmish of Shade’ and Jaune and RWBY came upon their respect with their efforts in Atlas and beyond, Pyrrha managed to curry the favor of a fair number of Vacuans simply through her sacrifice at Beacon. Her new outfit, her weapons, even her rudimentary scroll- they were all gifts from local shops. In a way, she belongs to this desert kingdom more than anything or anyone else.

“Jaune?”

He flinches too hard to hide it this time, but her expression is unreadable.

“Yeah?” Jaune swallows bitter bile, waiting for the inevitable question.

“Where are we going?”

We. Right.

“West, out of the city. Come on, we’ll be faster on the rooftops.” Jaune heads for the closest wall gate, desperate to leave his thoughts behind him.

“Jaune, please accompany Pyrrha on this mission,” Oscar had asked simply this morning in Theodore’s office. Before that, Jaune had been unsure why he had been summoned; Oscar’s text had very few details. Probably because he would have already been walking in the other direction, soulless desert be damned, if he’d known what these three had planned.

Headmaster Theodore, Professor Rumpole, and Oscar- yes, actually Oscar, judging by the slightly guilty expression- watched him expectantly.

“A squall came through last night and the Western relay node has gone offline; we need the wind damage cleared before we can actually repair it,” Theodore explained further. “That’s where you come in. I’ve sent coordinates to your scroll. Clear the debris and report back.”

Jaune casually adjusted the straps of his chest plate, trying to conceal the hitch in his breathing. “Oh, well, I was supposed to-”

“Xiao Long has been reassigned to a different mission with her teammate Schnee. Mr. Daichi and Ms. Scarlatina are handling your original mission,” Professor Rumpole raised an eyebrow up at him. “You’re clear to help your partner with this.”

“I mean, sure, but what about back up?” Jaune swallowed, nervous. “I’m sure Nora would love to help! They’ve been pretty close, right? Oh, or Ren! Grimm have been really nasty in that part of the desert, yeah? Wouldn’t it be better if-”

“If her partner stopped avoiding her?” Rumpole finished, crossing her arms and glaring at him. “We’re spread too thin to have full teams on small jobs.”

The room was silent for a moment.

Professor Rumpole wasn’t quite as terrifying as Professor Goodwitch, but eventually, he still looked away.

“Fine. We’ll get it done,” he muttered, already turning to go. He could see Oscar making a face out of the corner of his eye. Good, he could stand to feel a little guilty about it. There’s no doubt this was his idea.

I don’t want to… not yet.

“What’s the problem here? Stop spitting into the wind!” Theodore retorted, standing from his chair, pressing his gloved hands to his desktop and peering at Jaune. “Didn't you miss her?”

He froze, a wave of rage passing through him. He clenched his teeth and fists as the feeling filled every crevice of his soul and simmered into a boil. Then, just as quickly, the wave receded, drawing back until he was hollow once more.

“Of course, sir.” Jaune turned and left without another word. 

It’s not as if anyone else would understand.

3. hesitant

Jaune leaps from rooftop to rooftop, with his only objective seeming to be to get out of the city in the westward direction. By the time Pyrrha’s moisture wicking underclothes have soaked up a gallon of sweat, they’re finally on the outskirts of the capital. They’re heading into the blazing sun, which isn’t relenting as it sinks lower toward the horizon.

Not once does he look back at her, only opting to look once she’s at his side in the shifting sands. Even then, he only glances at her and nods once. He pulls his scroll out,much higher tech than hers, and orients them with a map. In the distance, a blue objective waypoint blinks steadily. She nods and he puts it away as they set off.

Her words stick in her throat, like they so often do these days. As they jog through the sand, heat waves shimmer. The trick to running through the desert, as Fox Alistair graciously advised her last week, is to never give the sand a chance to know you’re there. Pyrrha springs from step to step, lightly pressing on the hundreds of grains under her sole for just a moment before pushing off again. Jaune runs alongside her, much more fit than she remembers. It almost makes her laugh, to see him so seriously engaging in exercise that would have had him gasping or swearing at Beacon.

Almost.

The sun has sunk lower into the sky by a few degrees by the time the mangled tower comes into view. Pyrrha almost skids to a stop at the sight of it, slowing her gait as they approach.

“Badly damaged?” She croaks out as they slide down the dunes that have been blown into formations around the structure. Once the sand settles under her, she takes a long drink from her water pouch. Jaune does the same, moving into the shadow of what’s still left standing.

“Emphasis on badly,” Jaune quips dryly. Then he looks over, startled, when Pyrrha snorts. The sound surprises her as well. She clears her throat and busies herself with another drink of precious water.

“Blueprints?” Pyrrha asks, conserving her words. 

Jaune passes over his scroll. She peers at them, looking up at the twisted metal structure. Some of it can be bent back into shape, mainly the huge looming top half of the tower that hangs at a seventy-five degree angle. Other pieces scattered around are definitely just scrap now.

As she looks over and over the structure, she circles it and memorizes the appropriate shapes. Scattered shrapnel gathers into a pile without much thought, neatly pulled from the sand before it can pose a trip hazard. On her third circuit, Pyrrha dares to look up at Jaune.

He still sits listlessly in the tower’s shadow, sand pooling around the ankles of his boots. He has his arms folded across his knees, chin on his arms as he watches her work. Their eyes meet briefly before his gaze darts away. Still, he remains angled toward her.

Pyrrha points up at the twisted spires where the forces of nature had torn the metal apart. “Some of these are too big for me to adjust–”

“That’s fine,” Jaune says quickly. “Do what you can and we’ll–”

“–by myself?” Pyrrha finishes, trying not to look too hurt. The face coverings help with that. Nothing can hide how her shoulders curl in for a moment, betraying how much she wants to shrink under Tora and let the sand cover her.

“What am I gonna do?” Jaune snaps bitterly. His anger carries like sand on the wind. They stare at each other for a long moment, at once a few feet and a million miles away. Pyrrha coughs, reaching beneath her gaiter to massage her throat.

“You could… boost me?” Pyrrha suggests gently. No sooner than the words have left her mouth does she regret them.

Oh… I should have let him tell me. She frowns, licking her lips nervously. Would he have though?

Blue eyes snap up, wide and betrayed. Jaune’s eyebrows furrow, putting the pieces together. His accusation is swift and accurate: “Nora.”

“She’s been catching me up on what I missed,” Pyrrha says apologetically, clearing her throat again. 

That was a bit of an understatement. Nora had spent an hour or so each night in their shared room rambling about JNPR’s misadventures after Beacon. Even though Nora falling asleep mid sentence was somewhat normal for them, she’d still double checked with Ren that she was okay, or at least close to it. They hadn’t yet gotten to the part where Nora earned the sharp, spider-webbing scars that adorn her skin now; Pyrrha hasn’t been sure if she’s allowed to ask.

“It has been a rough few months for us, Pyrrha,” Ren had said over mugs of cactus leaf tea, squeezing her hand kindly. “Let her enjoy talking to you again.”

It’s hard not to enjoy their late night talks. When the desert is dark and cold and the Shade dorms cool down enough for a light blanket, it’s positively cozy to listen to Nora ramble on about events she can only imagine. Besides, Nora doesn’t expect her to talk; she doesn’t need Pyrrha to clear the scratchy, annoying feeling in her throat to contribute. Her simple hums, sighs, and giggles do just fine.

“She’s mentioned it a few times so far,” Pyrrha explains as she fidgets, twisting her bare fingers around each other until her joints ache with the strain of contortion. There’s no escaping this awkwardness. There’s only the two of them, the blistering heat, and the dead reception tower for miles.

Jaune gets to his feet, stiffly approaching despite stumbling down the small remaining dunes. She watches him flex and clench his hands as he nears, until he’s just inches away from her, standing shoulder to shoulder. He stares up at the relay tower while she stares at the smooth expanse of his cheek.

Her fingers twitch.

“Yes. I can boost you,” he says finally, after they’ve stood there for a moment. She nods. After hovering with hesitation for a half-second, Jaune puts his hand on her shoulder.

Pyrrha gasps, reeling from the sensation.

Once before, she’d felt this power- the clear, pure, and deep well of Jaune’s soul. Back then, it had been just a moment, a passing awareness. Now, Jaune’s aura flows through her, intense and all-encompassing. It’s a cool stream, a fresh snow, a crisp mint leaf, an ocean wave-

“Hey, hey,” Jaune snaps, suddenly in front of her. He steadies her by the shoulders, searching her eyes with panic. “What’s wrong?”

Pyrrha surprises herself by laughing, joy as clear as wind chimes. When she lifts her goggles to wipe the tears of mirth from her eyes, they evaporate from her skin almost immediately. He lets go of her shoulders and steps back, swallowing hard.

“I was right,” Pyrrha gasps, trying to catch her breath. “You do have a lot of aura. Jaune, that’s amazing!”

For a moment, Jaune’s face is open and hopeful, beaming with something close to joy. Then something shifts; his expression shutters as surely as the city of Vacuo before a sandstorm. He takes another step to the side, keeping his hands to himself.

“It’s… well, yeah.” He sighs, looking up at the defunct lights that line the vertical beams of the tower. “I’m not the same stupid kid I was at Beacon.”

What?

Pyrrha opens her mouth but nothing comes out. She squeaks, furious at her voice for abandoning her. She reaches out for Jaune, but draws back almost immediately. He side-eyes her, gaze dropping to her hand, then to the sand at their feet.

“I can do less, if it’s easier. Just figured you’d want to get back to campus as soon as possible, you know?” Jaune continues, concentrating until his hands shimmer with aura. “I also don’t have to touch you. I should have asked. That’s on me.”

She frantically massages her throat with both hands, trying to get her fingers to find purchase on the sweat-soaked skin under her chin. Jaune frowns at the ground again, hand hovering near his belt now.

Finally, her voice struggles free. “Jaune, I–”

He hushes her. Somehow, that hurts more than anything else.

“Do you feel that?” He whispers, hand firm on the hilt of Crocea Mors now. Pyrrha feels anger swell and flare in her heart at the dismissal.

“Jaune, this is important–!”

It doesn’t matter how important what she needs to say next is. 

The ground beneath them explodes.

4. sweaty

Beware sudden dunes.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Jaune shouts as the burst of sand sends him flying several feet into the air.

The brisk advice had come from a fair number of people, namely members of CFVY who he'd tagged along with on missions in the early days of their return. The vagueness was purposeful, as any number of wildlife, geographic features, ruins, weather, or worse, Grimm, could cause new sand dune to arise. Velvet had at least elaborated with a story about a huge family of mole crabs.

This was no mole crab.

Jaune recovers midair, twisting to get his bearings as huge claws flail menacingly, reaching for purchase and prey. In mere seconds, the creature uncovers itself, shaking off sand to reveal its inky black carapace, ashen boney plates, glowing red markings, crimson eyes, and golden stinger.

“Deathstalker!” Jaune calls out, unsure where Pyrrha is. He expands his shield and lets its hard light wings catch the wind, carrying him out and away from the relay tower. He stumbles into a run at the far edge of the crater made of dunes. Now that he turns around, frantically sweeping his gaze across the landscape, it’s relatively obvious that the dunes that allowed the tower's full height to be revealed were hiding something dangerous. Relay towers didn’t sit in craters of their own making, not in this ever-shifting landscape.

Not again. No, no. Where is she?

He searches for bright red among the settling sand cloud, shielding his eyes as the Grimm hisses. It swivels its body toward the communication tower. Jaune’s heart sinks as he sees the object of its focus.

Pyrrha crouches within the twisted spire of the relay tower, precariously balancing one of the remaining beams. Her newly forged weapons, not too dissimilar from Miló and Akoúo̱, glint in her hands. The blade of Mellon, in its short sword form, retracts on its cord as she watches warily, making the sound that the creature hones in on. Though she is still, the whirring is like catnip; this Grimm is on the hunt.

“It can hear you!” Jaune shouts to her, running down the dune to the fight. Nothing else is likely to be here, right? A Grimm this big shouldn’t tolerate too many others. But a Grimm this big shouldn’t be so close to the settlements either! …I guess anything’s possible with three Kingdom’s worth of stress calling every Grimm on Remnant.

As he’d expected, the Grimm swivels toward him, its beady red eyes glimmering in the sunlight. With the scattered sand settling, the heat becomes oppressive again. He ducks and parries the pincher that swings toward him with his sword, then blocks the other with his shield. The impact nearly squashes him, but he activates his shield to force it back. His timing is perfect, almost instinctual now.

“Jaune!” Pyrrha shouts from above. As the deflected claw rears into the sky, a swarm of shrapnel attacks the creature’s face, piercing its eyes until they weep black and red sludge. Jaune scrambles out of the way as it flails and screeches in agony. Pyrrha clambers down the ladder-like structure, face unreadable behind her goggles.

The sand explodes in front of them as the Deathstalker slams its stinger into the sand where he’d just been standing.

“Great!” Jaune shouts bitterly as they sprint away from it, putting the relay tower between them and the monster. “Now it’s pissed and blind!”

“I’m sorry! It was about to crush you!” Pyrrha cries out. “What else was I supposed to do?”

He rolls his eyes and doesn’t answer. What else indeed.

The Deathstalker screeches behind them, drowning out Jaune’s harsh bark of laughter. Still, Pyrrha looks at him oddly, tilting her head. He ignores her, looking around. The Grimm itself is nearly half the size of the crater. The only thing nearby is the tower, its twisted metal, and the concrete platform that anchors it in the desert. Above them, the bulk of it twists to the side like a misshapen crane arm.

“Get us up there!” Jaune demands, gratified that Pyrrha questions neither his order nor his tone. She immediately crouches and launches him off her shield. Carefully composed as he soars upward, Jaune grabs one of the steel beams and pulls himself onto it. Pyrrha follows, wrapping Mellon’s grappling cable around a piece of metal a few feet away. It carries her to safety for the second time today just as the Grimm scuttles over, ramming its stinger into the sand again. Its struggle to remove the stinger conceals the sound of the cord retracting this time.

Small mercies.

Pyrrha looks over her weapons in her hands, perched next to him. “Jaune-”

“I’m thinking!” he hisses, watching the beast howl with frustration as sand sprays up into the air and its stinger comes up empty. 

She yanks her neck gaiter down to her collar and lifts her goggles into her bangs. “Listen to me!”

“What part of thinking-”

“Jaune,” Pyrrha cries out. “I’m not going to lose you again!”

“You didn’t lose me, Pyrrha!” Jaune snaps back. “You can’t lose something on purpose.”

This high in the air, the hot, dry wind whips around them. Pyrrha licks her lips, expression pinched in a rare moment of irritation.

“What?”

The tide within Jaune swells. The wave crests, but it doesn’t break. He looks away, trying to spot the shimmering mirage of Vacuo city in the far distance. At this time of day, it’s too hazy with the darkening sky to see much of anything.

“I thought you remembered everything,” he mutters. Then he swallows, “this isn’t the time for this.”

Get it together.

“I fail to see any other time for it!” Pyrrha exclaims, voice cracking. “Why is it that it takes mortal peril for us to talk to each other?”

“No way! You don’t get to put this on me!” Jaune snarls, unable to quell the vicious bite in his voice. “All I ever wanted to do was talk to you! You couldn’t even let me return the favor! You kept me going at Beacon, day in and day out, but when the time came for you to actually trust me, you shoved me away! You didn’t even give me a chance-”

“Ozpin didn’t even want us fighting her!” Pyrrha puts her shield on her back so she can balance better, coiled like a spring on the precarious perch. Jaune mirrors her, except he sheaths his sword instead. Old, buried anger comes to the surface. He’s kneeling amongst the rubble of Vale again, trying to make sense of the locker he’s just crawled out of and hoping against hope that he’s having a particularly bad nightmare.

“Exactly! Ozpin died fighting Cinder! But you thought you could do it by yourself?” Jaune laughs bitterly, all too aware that there are tears streaming down his face. “Do you know how many times I’ve defended you and your last choice? Surely, I thought, surely my partner didn’t ship me off and go get herself killed in a fight she knew she'd lose! Of course she thought she stood a chance! Of course she just needed to get me out of her way!”

There’s a moment of stunned silence. Even the Grimm is quiet beneath them.

“Did you… Did you just think I thought you were in my way?" Pyrrha shouts, eyes wide in disbelief. 

Jaune doesn’t hesitate to snipe back. “What else was I supposed to think?”

Pyrrha’s face twists with pain or anger; they’re so unfamiliar on her countenance that it’s hard to tell. She clenches her empty hand, pressing her fist against her thigh. 

“I was protecting you!”

“I didn’t need you to protect me!” Jaune counters, as the wave of anger finally crashes to shore. “I needed you, Pyrrha!”

5. gentle

In two weeks and three days, Jaune has not once said her name.

His initial silence was unsettling. His surprised stare was unyielding. After all of the excitement and questions had settled, he’d finally spoken, cutting across the chatter.

“Robyn, could you?”

She’d taken Pyrrha’s hand again, almost apologetically, then nodded at Jaune. He’d taken a deep breath, before looking her in the eye, seeing her and not just past her. She’d shivered, feeling undone by his intensity.

“What are you?”

Those three words inspired nothing but confusion. “I… I don’t think I understand. What am I? I’m… a huntress-in-training? A girl?”

Your partner? 

She’d kept that one to herself.

Despite wanting to puzzle out the expression on his face, she glanced down in time to watch Robyn’s aura shimmer from pale purple to bright green. She looked back up at Jaune, at Ruby and her team who looked between her and him with varying levels of disapproval and understanding. Finally, Jaune sat back in his chair and sighed, apparently content with that answer. The tension still did not leave his shoulders.

“Alright then,” he said quietly into the silence. “Welcome back.”

The greeting felt hollow, especially since he went out of his way to avoid her from that moment onward. In fact, between her miraculous return and their current mission, she could count their conversations on her fingers. 

Now, she rubs her fingertips on the woven texture of her compression tights, savoring the distracting sensation. There’s nothing else to say but the truth.

“I knew I was going to lose you,” Pyrrha insists, using the word that had started this entire argument. “But I wanted you to at least be alive if I had to.”

Jaune is pale, his fury waning by the moment. The tear tracks on his cheeks dry almost as quickly as they’re created. “What did that matter? We could have both made it out. It wasn’t… You didn’t… Damn it, Pyrrha.”

“Jaune, hear me please. Running would have killed me, even if I still drew breath,” Pyrrha swallows nervously, but the lump that has plagued her all these days is completely gone. She continues, “I thought if I fought, I might survive. I could live or die with that, if you were okay. I hadn’t abandoned my duty and I hadn’t failed you.”

“But you made me abandon you.”

Pyrrha smiles, just for a moment. “That was selfish of me, wasn’t it?”

“It was!” Jaune shouts, flinging his free hand out so hard he nearly loses his balance. Pyrrha flings her own hand out, yanking his breastplate toward her with her semblance. He yelps as he stumbles forward over the metal trusses, nearly colliding with her. He flails for a moment, but quickly regains his balance.

The tower groans. With both of them tipping the scale away from the base, its stability compromises rapidly. Pyrrha glances down at the scuttling Grimm beneath them, still wandering in the fugue of its own rage and agony.

“Yes. It was,” Pyrrha whispers. She relaxes her semblance, allowing him to move away from her. 

Jaune doesn’t budge. Neither of them do, knelt precariously across from each other. Her hand hovers between them, still outstretched and bare. Gently, she places her hand on his cheek, expecting him to flinch. But he doesn’t. He leans into it, sighing and letting his eyes slip closed. His skin is rough to the touch, with soft barely-there hairs that tickle the ridges of her finger pads. It’s a wonder all of its own, the feeling of her skin pressed to his.

“I have always loved fighting by your side, Jaune,” Pyrrha murmurs, stroking her thumb along his cheekbone and wiping his tears away. “It terrified me that you might die by mine.”

“Then let me choose that,” Jaune whispers. “You owe me at least that much.”

The metal scaffold beneath them shudders, nearly throwing them off. Pyrrha keeps them both pinned to it, gasping with the force of the continued ramming. Below them, the Grimm has finally given up on trying to reach them directly. It slams its pinchers into the heavily fortified poles at the base, screeching in frustration. They gawk at it, then at each other as the metal beneath them begins to creak and sway even more. The Deathstalker screeches and turns in a circle, viciously  stabbing into the stand with its claws.

“Okay,” Pyrrha promises quickly, though the thought of it seizes her heart in a familiar vice grip. “I swear I won’t… I won’t make that choice for you again.”

Jaune nods into her hand, closing his eyes briefly. He sighs.

“To be clear though,” Jaune says with a tiny, watery laugh, “I’m not trying to die by your side anytime soon. Or ever?”

Pyrrha responds with a tiny giggle of her own as the Deathstalker begins to slam the tower again, jostling them. “So not today?”

“Definitely not today!” Jaune yelps. “Fight and live?”

“Fight and live!” Pyrrha repeats, pulling away to put Mellon back in her belt. They scramble to their feet, running for the main tower as the metal twists and groans beneath them. Jaune turns back to grab her hand, helping them both stay steady as they leap for the tiny grate that acts as a service platform within the main body of the tower. Some twenty feet below, the Deathstalker continues to bellow and batter the foundation, its single-minded hatred fueling it beyond reason. That fury makes it dangerous to fight up close, but in a few more hits, they won’t have a choice.

“Jaune?” Pyrrha shouts over the cacophony of bestial rage and structural collapse. He tears his gaze away from the furious Grimm and raises an eyebrow at her. She squeezes his hand and grins. “Help me?”

He smiles in understanding. This time, when Jaune activates his semblance, Pyrrha is ready for the burst of power and energy that flows through her. She flings out her free hand toward the huge piece of tower that had been their perch, seizing it and flipping her wrist to twist it off the main structure.

The motion shakes the tower, but Jaune catches her by the waist, anchoring them both by clinging to the foundation beam nearby. Pyrrha gasps her thanks, then continues to focus on the task at hand. She lifts the huge chunk of metal as easily as a handful of ball bearings, then crushes her fist, shaping it into a wicked javelin of steel.

Then, with Jaune holding her steady, she flings the makeshift weapon at the Deathstalker’s back. The Grimm screeches in agony as its carapace rips in two, expelling viscous sludge several feet into the air. Flailing its stinger, it struggles where it's skewered into the sand, then finally goes limp. It, and its sludge, dissipate, carrying black ash onto the wind and into oblivion.

They both relax their semblances as one, exhaling with relief. Still Jaune doesn’t let go of her; she makes no effort to move away. Further beyond the relay tower, the sun sinks below the horizon, throwing reds, oranges, and dark purples into the sky.

“Uh, well… if headmaster Theodore asks…” Jaune clears his throat, looking down at the metal carnage below them. The Grim had completely destroyed every bit of the distribution box and shredded the cable connection. CCT technicians, they were not, but anyone could see it was beyond hope. “It was like that when we got here?”

Pyrrha snorts once, then again and again until she’s howling with laughter. She turns and throws her arms around his neck, gratified when he hugs her back with the same intensity. The tower trembles a little underneath them, but it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Neither are they.

She’s been back for two weeks, three days, and a handful of hours, but only now does Pyrrha feel that she’s home.

“Hey, Pyr?” The love in the nickname punches the wind out of her lungs. She nods into his shoulder until he continues. “The next time you want me to leave, just ask, okay?”

She nods again, clinging to him even tighter. However, she knows, just as well as he does, that she could want nothing less than that. She pauses, concerned.

Does he know? Please… I need him to know.

Choked, Pyrrha murmurs, “I never want you to leave me again, Jaune.”

She can hear the tears in his voice as he replies, “Okay, good, we’re on the same page then.”

Let’s stay that way.

Their trek back to Shade takes much longer than their breakneck outgoing pace. They take down small Grimm here and there, chatting about pasts both separate and shared, walking shoulder to shoulder in the cooling desert. He hugs her before leaving her at her room door, promising breakfast together. It’s both the most normal and oddest thing that has happened in her whole second life.

Exhausted, Pyrrha showers and crawls under her blanket. Whatever missions she had today, Nora isn’t back yet, though it’s plenty late enough for their nightly life updates. Somehow though, she knows she wouldn’t be able to listen for very long. Her eyelids droop shut and she snuggles into her pillow, grateful for its softness.

“I can only do this for you,” whispers the memory of an unfamiliar voice, just as she’s drifting off. “You’ll arrive just when you’re needed and you’ll arrive just when you need it. You’ll say what you need when the time is right to say it and you’ll listen when you need to hear. Everything beyond that is up to you.”

When she wakes the next morning, it’s because Nora is bouncing on the end of her bed.

“Pyr, wake up! It’s Friday! It’s five-thirty and it’s already hot!” Nora announces gleefully. Moreso than other mornings, she can’t help but notice her energy seems more genuine than usual, more like the joy she once had at Beacon. “Get up, get up! I want breakfast!”

Pyrrha sits up slowly, combing her fingers through her hair. Small grains of sand fall to the blanket. She also has the distinct sensation of a dream slipping through her fingers. She frowns, grasping for the memory to no avail.

“Pyrrha?” Nora asks, coming to rest on her knees in front of her. “What’s wrong?”

She blinks at her friend and smiles. “I had a dream I think… I just can’t remember it anymore.”

At this Nora beams and crows, “Dreams, scheams! Who needs them? We have the whole day ahead of us!”

Her hope and enthusiasm is contagious. Pyrrha grins and sweeps her into a tight hug. Nora squeaks and hugs her back, obviously startled but not unhappy about it. When she finally pulls back, neither of them mention the tears on the other’s cheeks.

“You said something about breakfast?”

Nora takes her by the hand and drags her out of bed, then throws her combat outfit at her face. She catches it easily.

“Yep! And it waits for no one! Come on, we have so much to do today!”

Pyrrha can feel her heartbeat quicken with joy, tugging her lips into a smile.

Today, and everyday after that…

It’s a life worth fighting for.

-

Epilogue

Thursday Evening

Theodore sighs. “Oz, this is a risky gamble you’re taking.”

The nickname makes him twitch a little bit.

Half a dozen conversations have come and gone, not to mention a host of different people needing their audience. Oscar makes no decisions without Theodore’s council and he makes none without Rumpole’s. They’ve been in this office for hours, and yet there’s no question of the gamble to which he refers. It’s been a few hours since he’d called Jaune in for a mission assignment.

“Oscar,” he reminds the headmaster. True, it was Ozpin’s memory of JNPR’s initiation shenanigans that had given him the idea, but it was a plan all of his own. “And it’s nothing they can’t handle.”

 “How long do you think it’ll take for them to realize we’ve sent them to a defunct relay tower with an active Deathstalker den?” Rumpole mutters.

“Hopefully longer than it takes for them to say what they need to say to each other,” Oscar replies, sipping his cactus leaf tea.

Rumpole is even shorter than Oscar, but her unimpressed glare manages to make him shrink into his chair a bit, chagrined.

“I may… also have Ren and Nora on standby at the current Western relay node, just a half mile way?” Oscar admits, flushing. “If something goes wrong, they’ll handle it.”

This made Theodore laugh loudly, his voice booming in the tiny office. Oscar winces at the sound, but it’s impossible to escape it. By the time the older man finishes, he has tears in his eyes.

“Ah yes, the other partner duo famous for currently getting along!”

“How convenient,” Rumpole drawls, dusting off her vest with a roll of her eyes.

“Two Nevermore, one bullet,” Oscar quips. He salutes them with his teacup and heads for the door.

Well, you certainly seem rather pleased with yourself, says Ozpin, amusement plain as day.

Oscar smiles into his tea, a small smile just between them.

By magic and miracles beyond his own power, Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren had each other once more. With these little nudges, team JNPR will surely ride again, changed but whole.

It’s the least we could do, don’t you think?