This is my very first RWBY fic! I'm really excited about the story, and plan for it to be pretty long (if I can find time to actually finish writing it). Bumblebee is my main focus, but White Rose will be around, as well. If you don't like those pairings, you don't have to read this! I'm not forcing your eyes to the computer screen, click away, click away!

Please review if you like the story, it gives me encouragement to keep writing more, and faster!

Also, I don't own RWBY or the characters :(

Blake Belladonna stood impatiently in line at the checkout counter, looking pointedly at the ground while doing everything in her power to keep her ears still. Of course, her agitation at having to try to keep them still only made them twitch more. She sighed in exasperation. You'd think that since she was a regular at this particular supermarket, she'd be receiving less attention by now.

Her turn to checkout finally arriving, she quickly paid for her groceries and began collecting her bags. It was at this moment that she felt a shift in the room. Attention was no longer being paid to the Faunus girl; someone else had captured the store's attention.

Curiously, Blake looked up, trying to find the person who would garner so much attention. No doubt, it would be some other poor Faunus who had wandered into this human dominated area.

Quickly finding the focus near the front door, Blake gasped at loud as she unconsciously shouted, "Yang!"

Hearing her name, the blonde huntress quickly snapped her head in Blake's direction. Locking eyes, Blake watched as a small flurry of emotions passed through those lilac eyes. Finally settling on an emotion Blake couldn't quite pinpoint…relief, maybe…Yang gave a small smile and wave as she started walking in Blake's direction.

Blake could certainly see why Yang garnered such complete attention from the onlookers. To say that Yang had aged well was…well, a complete understatement. Her blonde hair was still long, wavy, and wild, but now it seemed to have a permanent around the edges. Almost as if it were actually aflame. It looked like her huntress uniform hadn't changed much from their time at Beacon, as she still wore the vest over a crop top, showing off her ample chest. She must have grown another four inches since Beacon, as her short shorts made her legs appear even longer than before. She truly looked like a model, especially with the way her hips swayed as she walked.

Her features had changed slightly though. Once carefree and overly confident, a greater sense of maturity and sophistication could now be seen lurking in her eyes.

Blake exhaled, realizing that she had been holding her breath for far too long. Suddenly, she started to panic as she had no idea what to say to her old partner. Did her heart always beat this loudly?

If Blake had been bothered by the attention before, now every eye in the store was fixated on the two girls, wondering what the famous huntress, Yang Xiao Long, could possibly want with the Faunus girl who came in from time to time.

Stopping a few feet from her, Blake felt the familiar heat wave wash quickly over her body. She closed her eyes for just a second as she savored the familiarity of that little moment. Yang noticed and gave a small smirk, which Blake noted never fully reached her eyes, but was the first to speak nonetheless.

"Fancy meeting you here, Blakey."

Blake flinched at Yang's use of the pet name she had given Blake while at school. She tried to smile in return as she attempted to keep the conversation lighthearted, "I should be saying the same to you, as it's not every day we get to see a famous huntress in this neighborhood. What brings you here?"

Yang scratched her head in a very Yang-like manner before responding, "Oh, well, I was here dispatching some renegade Grimm and…you know…I got really hungry and came here to pick up some snacks!"

Blake laughed as Yang grinned at her. Hearing Yang talk put her more at ease. The Yang she knew was still very much in there.

Slowly, Yang's grin faded as she began looking more and more uncomfortable.

"So…uh…you living in this area?"

Looked at the ground, Blake responded, "Yes." She hoped that Yang would just leave it at that and move on to another subject. There were so many other things that Blake wanted to talk about. She wanted to know all about how Yang's life was going right now. What it was like being a huntress. How Ruby and Weiss were doing. All of the things she was missing out on…

"With him?"

But of course, it was unfair for Blake to think that she could ask about any of those things when there was a giant elephant in the room they needed to deal with first. Sighing, Blake looked off to the side as she answered, "Yes, with him." She couldn't bring herself to look Yang in the eyes, although she could tell that Yang was trying just as hard to avoid eye contact with her.

But never being the one to shy away from uncomfortable situations, Yang gave a small chuckle (or was it a sarcastic scoff?) before nonchalantly saying, "Well, that's cool. How's that going?"

Frowning, Blake decided to answer somewhat honestly.

"It's…different…than I thought it would be." Internally, she rolled her eyes. Different was the nicest way to describe the past three years. Disappointing, frustrating, heart-breaking would have been much more accurate.

"I'm sorry to hear that…" she began, looking truly sorry for the girl, "But uh…I should probably head back now though…don't want to get chewed out again for being late…"

Blake quickly snapped her head up, finding Yang already turning to leave. She felt her throat constrict as her eyes burned with threatening tears. Before realizing what she was doing, she reached out a hand and grabbed Yang's arm, shouting, "No, wait!"

Yang paused, looking at the hand on her arm, which Blake quickly dropped, before turning back towards her. Curiosity filled her eyes, along with pain and…was there a tiny bit of hope in there? No, that was just wishful thinking on Blake's part.

Suddenly feeling rather shy under that gaze, she looked at the ground as she shuffled her feet a little bit. She didn't really know what to say, but she really didn't want Yang to leave so soon. "I was…uh…I was just about to make dinner…so if you're hungry…you're welcome to come over…."

She looked up once the invitation had been made to catch Yang's reaction, which was the epitome of confliction. She couldn't explain why, but she really needed Yang to say yes, more than anything else in her life. She took a deep breath, swallowing her large amount of pride, as she added, "Please, Yang. No one else is at home and I…just…just please let me make you dinner."

Finally making up her mind, Yang resumed her jovial nature in an instant and grinned at Blake. "Ok, ok, no need to beg, Blakey! Just as long as we aren't having tuna fish sandwiches!"

Blake chuckled lightly before asking, "How about just tuna?" causing Yang to burst into laughter.

"God, I haven't had tuna in forever!"

Blake was willing to bet that "forever" had been about three years, since the last time they had eaten it together.

The walk back to Blake's apartment had been cheerful and light as the former partners began to catch up on what team RWBY had been doing since graduation. From the way Yang told it, she spent most of her time beating up bad guys with Ruby, while Weiss nagged at them from the sidelines.

Reaching her apartment, Blake unlocked the door and flipped on the light switch while gesturing Yang to come inside.

"Sorry, I didn't really expect to have company tonight…" she began, almost apologetically, feeling the somber energy that had come over her friend.

She watched as Yang stepped into the center of the small living room, taking a quick surveillance of her surroundings. A sofa with an accompanying coffee table took up one half of the room, littered with newspaper and magazine clippings of any article that had the word "Faunus" in it. A small, wooden dining table with four wooden chairs was situated close to the kitchen, which was viewable over a bar countertop that was also covered with clippings. And in the corner nearly hidden by the front door was one comfy, worn out chair sitting next to a slender, floor to ceiling bookcase that was bursting at the seams with carefully organized books.

Yang smiled as she turned towards the bookcase. "I can see the one place you spend a lot of time," she said while gesturing towards the beaten up old chair.

Blake chuckled in response as she went into the kitchen to start preparing the food. The blonde huntress walked up to the bar, planting her elbows on the countertop as she closely watched Blake. Feeling the lilac eyes upon her, Blake cleared her throat nervously before asking, "S-so any other interesting developments in Team RWBY…recently?" She felt herself swallow the words "since I left," just in time.

"Yes, actually," Yang began as Blake turned her attention back to the tuna. "Ruby and Weiss are dating now."

"W-What?" Blake managed to squeak out in surprise, looking at Yang incredulously as the blonde-haired girl laughed at her response.

"Yeah, just recently it happened. And you'll never guess who actually had the courage to admit it first," Yang wiggled her eyebrows at Blake as the Faunus girl continued to stare at her, mouth agape.

"No way!" She shook her head vigorously in denial. "There's no way Weiss Schnee confessed to Ruby! Just no way."

Yang nodded enthusiastically. "She totally did! I saw it with my own two eyes," she said as she pointed to her eyes as emphasis.

"Amazing," Blake said as she flipped the tuna in the skillet, still shaking her head in disbelief. She found it very difficult to picture the icy heiress professing her love for the bumbling brunette whom she loved to scold at every possible opportunity. Now, she could see Ruby doing something like that. And Yang…but Weiss seemed too emotionally distant for that.

Breaking up her train of thought, Yang added, "You know, they're actually super cute together now. Weiss still scolds the hell out of her, but it's a little bit…softer…now. Almost like she's only doing it because she cares so much for Ruby and wants to protect her. Well, most of the time, anyway. She is still Weiss after all."

Both girls chuckled as Blake picked up the two plates containing their dinner and walked towards the dining table, motioning with her head for Yang to join her. The blonde eagerly pushed away from the counter and dropped herself into the chair in front of the first plate Blake had set down.

As the two girls began eating, Blake was quiet for a moment, still thinking about Ruby and Weiss dating. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense to her. Weiss had let Ruby get closer to her than anyone else in her whole life. For her part, Ruby and Yang shared the quality of being able to weasel their way closer to people who tried to keep them away. Breaking down walls was their forte. At least, that had certainly been Blake's experience with Yang.

"So," Yang began after not too long, snapping Blake back to the table, "I was sent out this way today because there was a Grimm in the city, like I told you. But recently, someone has been releasing a lot of Grimm all over Vale all of the time."

"Grimm being…released…in the city?" Blake narrowed her eyes as she thought about the potential implications behind this.

"Yeah, released. Like someone is scooping Grimm out of the forests and dropping them in the middle of the suburbs or a busy intersection or a school parking lot." Yang's features filled with anger as she spoke, while Blake felt herself filling with concern.

"Has anyone been hurt? Do they know who's responsible?" Blake's mind was working overtime, trying to figure out who would be doing such a thing and any possible motive for doing so.

Yang shook her head forlornly as she set down her fork, now finished with her dinner.

"Several people have been seriously injured, but we have no idea who's behind it or why. As you can imagine, the snow queen is loving not being able to solve this riddle." Yang sniggered at Weiss' plight before continuing. "It's not hard to dispatch the Grimm, you know how easy most of them are."

"But most citizens of Vale aren't trained as huntresses," Blake cut in.

Yang nodded her head, "Exactly. It's getting awfully hard to be everywhere at once."

Her adrenaline was pumping now. God, how she had missed being a part of this world. "Have you thought about splitting everyone up? Covering areas solo so that someone will be able to respond quickly to any attack?"

Leaning back in her chair with a sigh, Yang nodded at her. "That's what we've been doing. Divide and conquer, blah blah. Luckily, Ruby can cover three times the normal area with her speed, but Vale isn't exactly small, you know?"

Blake leveled a serious gaze at Yang, locking eyes once again, she felt her heart beat increase, but this time it was from a combination of those lilac eyes and the news she had just been told.

"You have to let me help you," she began forcefully. "One less area to worry about. And I can help find whoever is behind this. You know that I can be useful, Yang."

Yang looked at her with solemn eyes as she slowly began, "Blake…"

At that second, the front door rattled as a key was inserted into the lock and the doorknob turned. Blake felt her heart drop in her chest as the door opened and in walked a tall Faunus with brown hair highlighted in red. Clearly, he wasn't in the best of moods, judging by the way he slammed the door shut behind him and threw the newspaper in his hands towards the mess on the coffee table.

"A-Adam!" Blake stuttered, turning towards him as he finally noticed the blonde girl in the room. She grimaced at the smirk that spread across his face as he recognized who it was sitting at his dining room table.

"Why hello there, blondie," he began as he walked over to them. "What brings you down from your castle tonight?"

The sound of chair legs scrapping across the ground filled Blake's ears as Yang abruptly stood up from the table. Not knowing her own strength, her chair crashed into the wall behind the table and fell to the floor with a loud bang. The temperature in the room also noticeably increased by several degrees.

"I was just leaving, actually, so don't waste anymore brain cells trying to be clever," Yang said coolly as she straightened out her vest and began walking towards the door. She stopped in front of the door, turning her head slightly towards where Blake was still sitting, frozen to her chair by the sudden change in atmosphere. "It was good to see you, Blake."

Adam sneered at the huntress' back as she turned the doorknob and opened the door. "Thank god you dumped this loser of a partner," he directed at Blake.

Yang froze in the middle of the doorway as Blake quickly stood up, knowing the fiery girl didn't exactly have the longest fuse and she would likely need to intervene in the upcoming fight. After a couple of seconds, a scorching wave of heat burst out of Yang, quickly washing over the room and disappearing as the young huntress slammed the door behind her.

The bang of the door made Blake jump. She hadn't been expecting Yang to leave so peacefully after that comment. She glared at Adam as he sniggered. "Oh come on! That was funny!" he said as she shoved by him and out the door. She needed to catch up with Yang.

Thankfully, the blonde huntress had not yet mastered the art of being stealthy, quiet, or low-key. Especially when angry. Blake easily tracked the fireball's trail of heat and scorch marks down to the street, where she could see the glowing of Yang's hair a short way away.

"Yang, wait!" she called out as she ran to catch up with the girl. Yang continued walking away, but thankfully didn't try to run from her.

Reaching out, Blake grabbed Yang's shoulder, but quickly recoiled as Yang's body temperature was scolding hot. Clutching her hand to her chest in pain, Blake felt tears sting at her eyes. "Yang, I'm sorry!" she shouted.

The blonde whirled around, causing Blake to take a step back from the level of heat radiating off of the girl. Yang looked at Blake's hand briefly with concern, so Blake shook it lightly to show that she was ok. Satisfied with this response, concern quickly turned to hurt and anguish.

"Yang…" Blake began, not entirely sure what she could say to take that pain away, but wanting to say something anyway.

"No, Blake," Yang interrupted, shaking her head as she took a step backwards. "Don't try to apologize to me."

"We had a good thing going, Blake," Yang continued, voice cracking with emotion as she threw her hands out to the side as emphasis. "You…me…Team RWBY," she continued, "and you choose that no-good loser who lured you in with promises of changing the world. And guess what? The world hasn't changed a bit. You deserved to be a part of something so much better, Blake."

No longer shouting, tears began to well up in Yang's eyes, but she looked directly at Blake anyway, not embarrassed to show how deeply it had hurt that Blake had left her. "You could have changed the world with us. With me…" she said softly as she dropped her arms to her side, defeat written on her face. She took one last long, shaky breath before she turned away from Blake and began to walk away.

Blake hadn't felt this broken in years…not since leaving Beacon. She wouldn't have thought that it was possible for her heart to break into more pieces, but watching Yang walk away from her was doing just that. She clutched her arms to her chest as the long overdue tears began spilling from her eyes. She couldn't handle this, not again.

"What if that's what I want now? What if I need you now?" she shouted at Yang's back, "A-and Team RWBY…" she added as a wave of embarrassment washed over her, erasing her short spike of courage. She was hoping beyond hope that Yang would turn around, that she would come back and wrap Blake up in a warm hug. That things could return to the way they had been.

She watched with bated breath as Yang paused for a second, before clenching her fists tightly at her sides and looking down at her feet. Her answer was barely more than a whisper, so inaudible that a normal human ear wouldn't have even been able to pick it up.

But Blake's Faunus ears picked up every painful syllable. The words echoed in her head as she watched her former teammate walk out of her life once again.

"I don't think I can handle being your second choice."