Chapter 1

It had been a long night of working as a bouncer and Yang desperately wanted to lay down and sleep. The drunks had been particularly belligerent tonight and Yang had been busy. It was a job she hated but one she had no choice in keeping. Unfortunately there was no bed waiting for Yang, at least not one for her. As she had for weeks, she would sleep in a chair beside her sister Ruby's hospital bed. Every penny Yang had, from their parents' life insurance, from sale of the house, from her own job, went toward Ruby's treatment. Well, it had. Now it went into the painkillers that would make her final days more comfortable. The doctors, Yang, and even Ruby knew the end was near.

It had started over a year ago. Yang was still living in the family home on Patch, working at a local business to pay for Ruby's college education. Ruby was going to school on the mainland at the University of Vale. From the start of her first semester to the close of her second, Ruby stayed at the school, the cost of traveling between Vale and Patch too great for her to visit home or Yang to visit her. When Ruby came home of the summer on completion of her first year she was different. Yang chalked it up to the fact that Ruby had just had a wealth of new experiences.

Soon Yang began to worry however. Ruby had not been feeling great since she arrived home, complaining of stomach pain. She seemed tired all the time. Yang at first assumed it was a regular illness, probably brought on by the change of climate, and Ruby reinforced the idea by telling Yang she would be fine. But she was not. For two months she was sick. She started losing weight. Then she vomited blood. For Yang it was terrifyingly familiar. Summer - Ruby's mother, Yang's stepmother - had died of cancer when the sisters were very young. Now Ruby, at an even younger age, was showing the same symptoms. Though Ruby resisted Yang eventually convinced her to go to the hospital.

And that's when the nightmare began. Ruby had her mother's cancer. What had started in her pancreas had already spread to most of her other organs, including her brain. That day the doctors said Ruby would likely not live for more than a few months, and there was nothing anyone could do. Ruby entered a deep depression, seemingly resigned to her fate, but Yang was determined to fight. She took Ruby to every expert she could find. They all told her the same thing: Ruby was not going to get better. But at the Vale University Hospital the doctors said they would at least try.

Yang sold the family house and moved to Vale with Ruby. She initially rented a tiny apartment for the pair to live in and Ruby went to VUH for regular treatments. Then, a little over a year after diagnosis, just as fall turned to winter, Ruby's condition took a turn for the worse. Her organs were failing, most notably her kidneys and stomach. She was moved into the hospital full-time, requiring constant treatment to prolong her life. To pay the bills Yang gave up her apartment and stayed with Ruby, sleeping in a chair at her bedside. Still money began to run short so Yang took a job as a bouncer at a local bar/nightclub.

So Yang made her way to Ruby's room after a long night. Though it was long after midnight, Ruby was awake. Ruby usually stayed up to see Yang when she got back from work. They chatted a bit about their day. Ruby complained about the difficult treatments and her constant pain while Yang tried to be upbeat and told funny stories about things that she had seen or overheard at the bar. Though she was tired and wanted to sleep, Yang was happy to spend a little time talking to Ruby. She knew there would not be much more.

They had been talking for almost an hour and now it was very late. Ruby was almost drifting off to sleep. The strong painkillers being pumped into her bloodstream could knock her out in a moment. Ruby yawned. "I hope Summer is okay." She said groggily.

Summer? Ruby's dead mother? Yang figured Ruby was delirious from her medication. It happened on occasion. "Yeah...I'm sure she's fine." Yang said, not really sure how to deal with the situation. "We'll talk about it in the morning." Ruby smiled then closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Yang was shocked awake as alarms blared. She knew what it meant. Ruby was going into cardiac arrest. Some doctors and nurses rushed in, bringing a cart with them. While a few started to prep Ruby for resuscitation, the head doctor went to Yang. "What do you want us to do Ms. Xiao-Long?" The doctor asked.

"Wha...what do you mean?" Yang stammered.

"I mean, should we resuscitate your sister?" He asked.

Yang's first instinct was to say yes. She wanted her sister to live. But something stopped her. Everyone knew the end was near. Ruby had been in terrible pain for weeks. Keeping her alive now would just prolong her suffering. Yang could not bear to let her sister die but to see her in so much pain was just as bad. "I...I don't…" Yang struggled.

"Ms. Xiao-Long, I need an answer." The doctor pressed.

Yang looked at Ruby. She looked peaceful, as if asleep. There was none of the agony she had seen when Ruby was awake. The assembled doctors and nurses looked at Yang. It was as if they were staring into her soul. She looked at Ruby's face one more time. "Let her go." Yang sighed. Most of the doctors and nurses departed, taking the crash-cart with them. The head doctor stood there as the alarms continued to blare. Then the beeps were replaced with a long flat tone. The doctor noted the time then silenced the monitors.

Yang's birthday was less than a month after Ruby passed away. When Summer had died, it had been the day before Ruby's birthday. When their father Taiyang died in a car accident, it was a week before Ruby's birthday. Now Yang knew how it felt. It was supposed to be a day of celebration, but she did not feel like celebrating. She felt only a deep despair, a hole in her heart she knew she could never fill. She now realized that at 23 years old, she had lost everyone she cared about. The woman she called mom, her father, the sister who was like a daughter to her, all gone and she was barely an adult. She had little education, no money, and a dead-end job. There was not even anyone left to console her. Happy birthday indeed.

Yang sat alone in her disgustingly run-down apartment. The paint was peeling off the walls - in the parts where there were not gaping holes - and the plumbing and electricity did not always work, but it was all she could afford. There were still bills to pay from Ruby's hospital stay. There was a knock at the door. Yang sighed, not budging from the couch, an ugly faded green number adorned with various tears, a gift from a generous curb. Overall her furnishings were sparse, her budget so tight she could hardly afford food let alone covers for her single mattress. She was thankful at least for the table, with it's charming 2x4 leg, and the wobbly chair covered in scuffs and stains. The debts incurred by Ruby's time in the hospital were still crushing her.

The knocking continued. Yang realized there was no avoiding it. It was probably the landlord. She was afraid her check would bounce and she would be evicted. She stood and dragged herself to the door. Taking a deep breath she opened it. She was shocked by who she found standing there.

"Hey there firecracker." Qrow said. "Happy birthday." He held a pizza box in his hand, a six-pack of beer dangling from his fingers.

"Oh, uncle Qrow, hey." Yang said. She had not seen him in years though they kept in touch.

"So, can I come in?" Qrow asked.

"Yeah, of course." Yang replied. She stepped aside and waved him in.

"Wow, shitty place you've got here." Qrow said. He placed the pizza box on the table, careful not to disturb its delicate balance.

"Gee, thanks." Yang groaned. "I'd offer you a seat, but, well, I only have the one."

"And I think I'm a little overweight for that poor thing." Qrow observed. "It's alright. I can stand."

"So, what brings you here?" Yang asked.

"I just wanted to see how you were doing." Qrow said. "Plus it's your birthday. No one should be alone on her birthday."

"Thanks." Yang sighed. She sat down in the wobbly chair beside the table. "Thanks for bringing food. If I didn't work at a bar I'd probably never eat."

"I'm sorry." Qrow said. "I had no idea it was so bad. I have some MREs lying around if you don't mind eating stuff that tastes worse than shit."

"No thanks." Yang said. "But if you have a gun and one bullet lying around, that would be great."

Qrow tensed up and glared at Yang. "That's not funny Yang." He admonished. "Don't joke about that. Ever."

Yang glared back. "Who says I'm joking?" She snarled. Qrow's gaze softened as tears ran down Yang's face. She wiped them away, wrapping her arms around herself, her hair curtained as she stared at the mottled carpet. "I lost everything Qrow." She sobbed. "I have nothing, nothing left. Summer, Taiyang, now Ruby, what's the point?"

"Remember how I was after I was discharged from the army?" Qrow asked.

"Not really." Yang replied. "You weren't around much. Dad told me you had PTSD."

"I never told you how I got over it." Qrow said.

"I always figured you just drank through it." Yang said.

"Ouch, but it's true." Qrow laughed. "For a while it even worked. But eventually it got to the point where I couldn't get drunk enough to stop the pain. I got worse, started getting in fights, ended up in the hospital a few times, spent a couple of nights in jail, you get the picture."

"You're a great role model." Yang groaned.

"So, after this bender, I'm lying in a hospital bed nursing three broken ribs and a punctured lung." Qrow continued, ignoring the insult. "This broad...nah, broad doesn't do her justice. This classy lady…"

"You, genuinely admiring a woman?" Yang gasped with faux surprise.

"I know, I'm going soft." Qrow said. "Anyway, she shows up at my bedside, says her name is Glynda. Then she just dug into me. I tried my usual schtick and all, but she wasn't having it. She kept pushing, not hard, but enough to nudge me onto her train of thought."

"I can't imagine that ended well." Yang said.

"It ended exactly how she wanted it to end." Qrow said. "By then I was sober, yelling at her, venting everything I tried to drink away."

"Wasn't she afraid?" Yang asked. "You can be pretty terrifying."

"If anything I was afraid of her." Qrow laughed. "She didn't flinch, didn't frown, didn't even yell back. She just kept staring me down with this intense look in her eyes. She was fighting my fire with fucking ice and it was working. The fire died down and I didn't even realize I was crying until everything went blurry."

"Then what?" Yang asked, leaning forward in her chair.

"She held my hand and we talked." Qrow replied. "For the first time in years I talked like a normal human being, about things I never wanted to talk about. We talked all night. Didn't even realize how long it was until the sun came up."

"And what, she fixed you?" Yang pressed. "Just like that?"

"You don't fix these kinds of problems Yang." Qrow replied. "You accept them, you cope with them, and with time they fade."

"I don't know Uncle Qrow." Yang sighed.

Qrow pulled out his wallet. He fumbled around before finding a worn-out business card. "This is her card." He said, handing it to Yang. "Keep it somewhere, your wallet, on the fridge, it doesn't matter as long as you have it. When you decide you're ready, give her a call. You'll probably get her assistant Pyrrha. She won't pry. Glynda already knows who you are though. I told her about you. Hell, she's a big reason I decided to stop by today. She can help you, just give her a chance. Give yourself a chance. Please."

Yang looked down at the card. "I'll think about it." She said. "Thanks Uncle Qrow."

"Anytime firecracker." Qrow said.

Qrow tossed something down on the table. Yang looked up to see a wad of cash. "What's this…" Yang started.

"That's so you can move into a place that doesn't have holes in the walls." Qrow said. "If you ever need anything, anything at all, I'll be there for you. I know that wasn't true before, but I'm going to do everything I can to make it up to you."

After Qrow left Yang sat there for a long time, holding the business card in her hand. She stared at it. Was she ready? Would she ever be ready? Yang pulled out her cellphone, a cheap pre-paid one, and entered the number to create a new contact. That was all she had intended to do. But once it was in there she had the urge to call. Maybe she was not ready yet, but she had to at least try. If her uncle thought it could help her it was worth a shot, and anything was better than the current situation. She tapped the icon and held the phone to her ear.

"Hello, Dr. Goodwitch's office." A cheerful voice said. "How can I help you?"

"Uh...Pyrrha I'm guessing." Yang said.

"The same." Pyrrha said. "What can I do for you?"

"This is Yang Xiao-Long...my uncle Qrow Branwen is a patient of Dr. Goodwitch." Yang said. "I...uh...I'd like to make an appointment...for myself."

Glynda's office was not what Yang had envisioned. When she thought of a psychologist's office, she imagined the sort of thing she had seen on television or in movies, a large brightly-lit room with a couch for the patient to lie on with a chair for the doctor. What she actually got was a small room with a pair of chairs placed rather near each other, with a coffee table between. There was one window but the building next door blocked any sunlight. The only real decorations were a few potted plants. In the adjacent room was what qualified as the waiting room. Pyrrha, Glynda's assistant and receptionist, sat behind a desk across from a trio of chairs reserved for waiting patients.

Pyrrha was much younger and better looking than Yang had envisioned, and normally the sort of person she would have flirted with, but she was too nervous about the appointment. Yang had never been good at talking about her feelings or asking for any sort of help for that matter. She was used to taking care of herself and holding everything in. That she had even recognized she needed help was something of an accomplishment, but now that she was here she had second thoughts. They only worsened when Glynda opened the door to her office. The bespectacled doctor was beautiful but intimidating.

Some rather pointless pleasantries followed as Yang the Glynda took their seats. "Your uncle has told me a bit about you." Glynda said. "But I'd like to hear things from your point of view."

"Well Dr. Goodwitch…" Yang started.

"Please, call me Glynda." She cut her off.

"Okay, Glynda." Yang said, starting over. "I guess I should start from the beginning. I never knew my biological mother. She took off right after I was born. My father soon remarried and my step-mother Summer raised me as her own. She died of cancer when I was still really young. My father was an emotional wreck after that, he started drinking like Qrow, and then when I was 16 he died in a car accident, probably while drunk. I had a sister Ruby, Summer's daughter, two years younger than me. I was basically the only parent she had after Summer died because dad wasn't capable of being a father after that. I did everything I could for her. I quit school to get a job to put her through college. She went for a year, came back and got sick. It was the same cancer her mother had. She was already too far gone when they caught it, and she died a little over a year later. That was about a month ago. To pay for her treatment I had to sell the family house and take a job as a bouncer. By the time she died I didn't have the money to bury her. I couldn't even afford a cremation. I had to give her body to science. Maybe they'll discover something about her cancer, but I don't really care. Now I'm still paying off the remaining medical bills and can barely afford to keep a roof over my head. If Qrow wasn't paying for it I wouldn't even be seeing you." She told her entire story in a cold, emotionless monotone. It was as if she were describing someone else's life.

"Yang, are you going to waste our time?" Glynda asked.

"What?" Yang gasped.

"If you're not going to engage your emotions, there's no point in what we're doing here." Glynda explained. "Emotions are part of who we are. Without them we can't function, and without them we can't heal. Suppressing them isn't strength, it's a sign of weakness."

"But I…" Yang started but did not finish. She had not been expecting that sort of response though based on what Qrow had said, she should have.

"It's alright." Glynda softened her tone. "I know this isn't easy."

"I just...I don't think I'm ready to face it all." Yang admitted. "Not yet."

"I understand." Glynda said. "And only you can decide when you're ready. When you are, know that I'll be here for you."

Glynda held out her hand toward Yang with the obvious expectation that Yang would take hold of it. Qrow had mentioned something like that from his own interaction. Yang just stared at Glynda's hand. It seemed like hours but it probably was not more than a minute. "I...I'm not ready yet." Yang stammered. "I guess you can't help me right now."

"Maybe, maybe not." Glynda said. "Though there is one thing that might help you be ready."

"What's that?" Yang asked.

"Here." Glynda said. She withdrew her hand and reached into her pocket, producing a business card. She handed it to Yang. "If you think you're up to it, come to a meeting. Perhaps interacting with others who have been in your situation will help."

Yang looked at the card:

Bereavement Support Group

Meetings every Friday at 7:00 PM.

Free of charge, complimentary refreshments.

All are welcome.

Yang thought it might be worth a shot. If nothing else it would be an opportunity to grab some free food. "People keep handing me cards, but I can't even afford a wallet." Yang laughed.

"Someone at the meeting might be able to help with that too." Glynda said.

"Someone sells wallets?" Yang asked.

"No, but one of the members might be able to help you get a better job." Glynda replied.

"I like my job." Yang joked. "I get to throw people around." For the first time in a long time she managed a genuine smile.