Silver Belladonna (Jaune Arc x oc)

12 - "I know what you meant"

They're in shock, not that we can blame them really.

Jaune gets up and starts yelling, odd to see him annoyed to be honest
"So everything we did was for nothing!" I stand back trying not to get involved, I'll only make it worse, speaking from experience of course.

"That's not true guys, we...." Coral tries to calm them
"Really! Because it sure seems like it was for nothing!" Nora huffs
"If Salem can't be killed then how are we supposed to stop her?" Ren ever the realist

We all remain silent, they are right I suppose.

"Wow" Jaune shakes his head "great plan everyone"

"We know none of this is great but we're not the bad guys here" Oscar tries to reason with him but it doesn't have the desired effect
"Are we sure about that?" Jaune turns on Oscar
"W-w-what?"
"He's in your head right! Did you already know about this! Were you hiding this from us!" Jaune stomps over to the poor boy who looks honestly terrified
"He didn't know!" Ash tries to intervene
"And we're supposed to believe that! We could be talking to that liar right now!"
"Jaune!" Little Rose calls out desperately when Jaune grabs Oscar, upon hearing her voice he lets Oscar go who keeps his back against the wall looking guilty. Jaune heads up the stairs without another word
"Is he going to be okay?" Sapphire speaks up concerned
"I don't know!" Nora throws her arms up
"I think we need some time to think" Ren and Nora also head upstairs, the rest of us stand in silence for a moment at a loss for words
"This is a mess" Sapphire sounds confused and afraid

"Should we get a coffee?" Weiss asks Blondie who nods
"Tea for me" Blake follows them to the kitchen
"I'll go talk to Jaune" Little Rose turn to me and states
"No" I grab her arm "I'll go, you go speak to Maria about the, you know, eye thing" before I even get to the first step Little Rose speaks up
"You care about him, don't you?" I bow my head before turning around
"I" I pause "care about all of you" that felt difficult to say
"That's not what I meant" she eyes me. I start my journey up the stairs but a few steps up I turn
"I know what you meant"

Jaune's not hard to find as he's at the end of the corridor in a bedroom with the door wide open, I don't say a word as I walk into the room and sit next to him.
"I don't want to talk about it Silver" Jaune finally speaks
"Then we won't talk about it" I bring my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them, I turn to look up at him, his eyes are bloodshot and his hairs a mess, it breaks my heart, he's the happiest person I know. Before I can talk myself out of it I lay my head on his shoulder, to my surprise he rests his head on mine. We sit like this for what feels like an eternity but in reality is probably only a few minutes.

Movement on the corridor causes us both to sit up and I move away from him, Ren and Nora enter the room and I figure they want time alone and I quickly leave.

Once back downstairs I notice Blondie, Weiss and Blake are all looking around frantically
"What's going on?"
"Is Oscar upstairs?" Blondie asks me
"No"
"He's not here!" Coral rushes in

"What's going on?" Nora calls down from the top of the stairs
"Apparently Oscar's missing" I respond
"What?!" Jaune hurries down the stairs "we need to start looking!"

We all go off in groups, team RWBY of course, Jaune, Nora and Ren go with Saffron. Coral and Ash go together leaving me and Sapphire of course.

"Jaune looked really upset" Sapphire wonders aloud
"He did yell at him" i shrug
"I feel bad for Oscar, he's only fourteen and he's here risking his life"
"Everything happens for a reason" I shrug again
"Sil, come on surely you don't think he should be here dealing with all this" I turn around frustrated
"Look he was dragged into this, no he shouldn't have been but this is what's happened, now come on let's find him"

Hours of searching turns up nothing for us and once we meet up with the others we realise no one's had any luck
"We'll continue looking, we're not going to Atlas without him" Jaune's eyes are filled with pure determination, I can't help but be drawn in by them.
"You're coming to Atlas?" Little Rose asks hopefully
Jaune, Ren and Nora exchange looks
"We've got your backs" Jaune nods at Little Rose
"Me too" Sapphire adds also sounding very determined

The door opening pulls me away from his hypnotising eyes and instead I see Oscar standing in the door way
"Err hi" he's got some new combat gear I note
"Oscar!" Nora runs at him resulting in them both falling to the floor

"You had us worried sick" Weiss stresses
"Are you okay?" Little Rose asks him
"What are you wearing?" Nora eyes him
"Give the boy some space" I pull them back from him
"Thanks" he nods at me
"You got it kid"

"Is something cooking?" Terra asks entering the house
"Oh yeah I thought you guys would be hungry after, well after looking for me all day it seems"

"It's my fault we were all out there in the first place" Jaune steps up occupying the space next to me, I oddly feel my cheeks heat up after that moment earlier "Oscar I'm so sorry, I was way out of line and what I said...."
"No it's fine. These past few days I've been worried about the same things you were. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be, well, me, but today I realised regardless of how long I have left I want to use that time to help." Oscar expresses

Poor kid he doesn't deserve this

"Good. This teams not the same without you" Jaune rests a hand on his shoulder and I gag at the affection, everyone faces me, I hadn't realised I'd gagged so loudly
Luckily the fire alarm goes off grabbing everyone's attention
"The casserole!" Oscar calls
"It's alright chef we've got it" Saffron and Terra go into the kitchen

"Your combat gear looks good" Little Rose smiles at Oscar who beams back "where are you going?" We turn our attention to the stairs where Qrows walking off, he's like a moody teenager, no? Just me?

"I don't want to get in the way of your celebration"
"Some celebration" I chuckle, Blake's hand covers my mouth
"You've been gone all day, just sit with us" Little Rose suggests
"Look Ruby I'm glad you kids have figured out whatever that was but the truth is we're no closer to getting to Atlas" I pull Blake's hand off my mouth
"Need I remind you I already had a plan" I speak up
Qrow eyes me
"They won't take us to Atlas then we take ourselves, only Atlas airships can leave so we take one"
"As much as we said it'd be a last resort we can't do that!" Weiss speaks up
"It's not just breaking the law it's worse!" Coral adds

"Okay stop! Just stop!" Qrow intervenes "if this thing goes South it's not something we can just walk away from. This is the Atlas Military, just drop this."

"No!"
"No?" Qrow repeats
"I want to hear her out" Little Rose retaliates I smirk
"Ruby..."
"I want to hear her out! I know you're trying to protect us, that you're afraid we can't do it, but right now I don't really care what you think!" I nod a big grin on my face "just because you don't have an idea doesn't mean that we are out of options" she continues "Oz hasn't been here to tell us what to do but we still made it this far. We've been in bad situations before and we never needed an adult to get us out of them. We did it our way and I think we need to do this our way"
"Hell yeah" I nod, she's an epic motivational speaker, I'm so pumped
"And if you think you can keep up with us kids we'd be happy to have you"
"Looks like you didn't give her enough credit either" Maria chuckles

Qrow says nothing but something tells me he's on board.

Hope you enjoyed this longer chapter
Happy reading
Lily