What Remains ~ RWBY

Part 15

Oscar's P.O.V

So this is what happiness feels like. Real happiness. Not fleeting moments of calm amongst the chaos, not a minute of relief after a fight, not a day of rest after an injury. This is it. Looking at her, here in my arms, a smile spread across her face that's there because of me, because there's no more danger, no more loss. I glance up at Emerald and Mercury at the edge of the dance floor talking with Weiss and Neptune. They don't look happy. Not like I am now. But as I watch they're shoulders relax, their mouths turn upwards in what could almost be a smile, I know that one day soon they'll find it. They hold each others hands tightly, just like they have been all night. They are each other's safety, and anyone who feels something as powerful as that can't be evil.

"Do you think I did the right thing?" Ruby asks, following my gaze, "Letting them in after everything that's happened?"

I smile at her, "I think you made a decision based on forgiveness. And those are usually far better than ones based on revenge."

"Careful. You're starting to sound like Ozpin." She chuckles. I shrug my shoulders and rest my chin on her head.

"Well, I'd hope at least a little of his wisdom rubbed off on me over the years."

Yang's P.O.V.

"Yang, they were just kids," Blake insists.

I pull her in by the waist and continue twirling her around the dance floor.

"And so were we," I grimace. I can see the furrow of her brows, the stern creases at the corners of her mouth.

"Okay, okay I'm sorry." I sigh. "I know, forgiveness and love and all that bullshit."

Blake chuckles and shakes her head, "You can act tough all you want Xiang Long, but I see right through it." She cups my face in her hands and I rest my head against hers. I want to forgive them, somewhere deep down I really do. I glimpse Emeralds green hair out of the corner of my eye and I'm taken back to five years ago. Meeting them both for the first time, we were just students. So swept up by our own young, naïve lives that we never even thought for a second that they posed a threat to us. That whole time, they had been part of a much bigger battle, watching as other people their age basked in their thoughtless existence. I know what that feels like, to stand on the sidelines of your own childhood, telling yourself it'll be waiting for you when the war is won. But even now, in the moments of peace and carelessness, the moments I've been waiting for all my life, the happiness is stained by what we've lost. The war may be over now sure, and we may have the opportunity to go back and relive the childhood we lost, but it'll never really be the same. Watching Emerald and Mercury, gripping each other's hands for dear life, something clicks in my mind. Deep beneath the anger and the caution, I realise that their childhood has been just the same as ours. War, loss, heartache. They just spent it on the wrong side.

Blake brushes her thumb over my cheek and her smile snaps me out of my trance.

"Now would you just find a smile and dance with me god damn it?"

Ruby's P.O.V.

Oscar brushes my cheek with his hand and I realise I've been lost in thought.

"You alright? You've been staring at them for a while."

I shake my head as if to shake away the thought. I hadn't even realised I'd been doing it really, but Oscar was right. It's as if I couldn't take my eyes off of them, Emerald and Mercury. What am I looking for?

For a split second, a fleck of light dances across their faces and it clicks. Because for just one moment, I watch them glance at one another, and I realise what it was I was searching for.