In RWBY's Shadow

The Talk

The rest of Lilly's weekend flew by before she knew it. After visiting Yang's house on Friday, Bianca came home with her for dinner and stayed the night. They'd stayed up late, swapping stories about school and boys for the most part. Bianca insisted on doing Lilly's hair, letting it down from its usual braid for the first time since the dance. Lilly didn't miss the similarities in style, especially after catching sight of the photo on Bianca's scroll again. Great. Even Bianca's obsessed with that crap. It seemed she was doomed to forever put up with people shipping her and Smit.

Dad took them both to the small airport on the other side of the city the next morning. Goodbye was harder than Lilly expected, even if she knew it would only be a week or so until they saw each other again. Bianca wasn't sure what her schedule would be like during the Tournament, but she promised to cheer for her team. The thought that Lilly might not be in the Tournament never crossed her mind.

Afterwards, Lilly and her father went to their favorite breakfast hangout and had a long chat about school, family, and – somewhat distressingly – boys. Lilly thought it was just his usual spiel about "books before boys" or him fishing for information, but the conversation was far more direct than expected. She'd almost choked when he mentioned Smit by name.

Dang it, Bianca! Actually, scratch that. Dang it, Yang! Somehow, that felt better, even if she was pretty sure Bianca was the culprit. In a roundabout way, she figured she could blame Yang for telling Bianca in the first place. When in doubt, blame Yang.

What followed was a rather uncomfortable interrogation as Dad rattled off a host of questions. He never reacted to her answers in any meaningful way, simply logging the information away in his mind before moving further down his mental list.

Has he tried anything with her? Absolutely not.

Does she like him? He's a good friend. Their supposed relationship is more everyone else's doing than their own.

Is he the same boy she wanted to get expelled?

That question was a little difficult to answer. She'd almost forgotten about their discussion last semester, back when Lilly had been on the warpath after Smit's behavior at the docks. She still hadn't told her parents exactly what Smit had done. All they knew was that the two had a big fight and Lilly had considered having him removed from the team as a result. Back then, Dad had given her some good advice and helped calm her down a bit. She wasn't at all surprised that he'd not only remembered that random conversation but could recall it so readily.

Their fight seemed so long ago that Lilly barely thought about it anymore. In a few, short months, she'd gone from saying she might never be able to trust him again to claiming him as one of her closest friends, with others ignorantly claiming more. She did her best to kill that rumor every time it resurfaced, reminding herself that the hopeless romantics were just too dense to separate friendship from love.

That her father had fallen for the rumor was a bit of a shock.

"The heart's a funny thing," he'd told her after their dishes were cleared. "Take your mother and I, for example. When we first met, I was interested in a close friend of hers. Your mother decided to help me out, giving me details on what her friend liked and the types of restaurants and activities I should take her to. Ended up dating the girl for almost a year before she dumped me. Your mom and I were already good friends by then and she tried to help me get over the breakup. Guess she did her job a little too well."

Mom had told her little bits of how they met, but she'd never mentioned the other girl before. Apparently, her mom had developed feelings for Dad pretty early on, but didn't want to interfere with his current relationship. Her typically observant dad somehow missed all the signs she'd been giving him for months before one of his buddies had pointed it out to him. He finally just straight up asked her if she liked him. Luckily for him, Mom wasn't a shy person and took the opportunity to make it clear how she felt. Dad didn't exactly say how, but Lilly could read between the lines.