What Remains ~ RWBY

Part 3

Oscar's P.O.V.

"Welcome to your room," Ruby smiles.

I look around at the dark grey walls, covered with photographs and posters, each one displaying a different huntress and huntsmen. No, wait, not just any huntress and huntsmen...is that...

"Whoa, are they of us?" I ask.

"Yep," Ruby quips, "Every one of them."

I walk over to one wall, running my fingers gingerly over pictures that I had all but forgotten. Mostly photos that Yang had taken when we were all busy wrapped up in our heads. But there were posters too, newspaper cut outs featuring us caught up in battle, each titled with words of praise from the cities we saved. Some of them were taken in our first few years as a group, our faces still young a naïve, but as time went on, the pictures became more and more grim.

"I didn't even know the papers were talking about us," I breathe.

"Neither did I," Ruby admits, "But Yang saved every last article, says shes going to show them to her kids one day. Teach them about all the good we did. This used to be her room, but she ends up falling asleep in Blakes room most nights anyway so she thought she might as well move her stuff there and give this one to you. She left the photos though, thought you might like them."

"I do, thank you." I don't really know why it makes me so happy to hear about Yang's plans to have kids, or the fact that she and Blake are still happy together even now. Maybe because they're proof that even we can keep good things alive, that we're allowed to have dreams and ambitions beyond just saving the world.

"Anyway," Ruby says, "I'll let you get settled in. My rooms the one just across the hall if you need me."

She turns to the door to leave.

"Oh, and Oscar?"

I look up to see her smiling, another rare, real smile like the one in the hospital earlier.

"Yeah?" I ask, and she only smiles wider.

"Welcome home."

I've missed their chaos. The chattering and clamouring that's constant amongst them. Most people wouldn't survive in a house with seven of their best friends, but after only minutes of being in the apartment I know that I never want to leave. It's not like it's gone back to normal of course. I see the way they look at me, the way they ready themselves every time I move, in case I fall apart and they once again have to pick up the pieces. I get it, I really do. I've been gone for three months, and all that time they thought I wasn't going to wake up. They've always been careful around me, protective. I am the youngest after all. But its been five years since I found Qrow in that bar, I'm not just some fourteen-year-old farmhand anymore. I find myself caught up on the idea that so much time has passed since I left home. I've gone back to visit a few times over the years, each time being met with a new version of my aunt, older, sicker, lonelier. A pang of guilt hits my chest. Does she even know if I'm alive?

"Oscar!" Jaune's voice snaps me out of my trance, "We got you something."

I turn my head to see Nora, Jaune and Ren holding a tiny sapling growing happily in a terracotta pot.

"Consider it a welcome home present," Nora grins.

I stare at the sapling quizzically before the realisation hits me. I smirk. "Is that...a pine tree?"

"Told you he'd love it, don't you Dorothy?" Yang says proudly. I laugh, unsurprised by the fact that such a stupid joke was Yang's idea.

"I do, thank you," I say, and I mean it. I take the pot with a grin, "It'll be perfect on the window sill in my room."