To call Rayna Cirrostra a mixed blessing would have been unkind. She was, inarguably, 100% blessing. It was just an awful lot of blessing to fit in such a small space.

Mr. Bole was just one man who was probably thankful enough not to spill the beans; at least, not all in one serving; but no container, not even gratitude, was wordtight. Too many magic touches and soon all of Remnant would hear of Panacea working miracles through a humble twenty-something avatar, and the problem with miracles was that once you started handing them out, everybody wanted one.

There were almost a billion people in Vytal alone. At a push, Rayna could manage half a dozen a day before she had to lie down.

Dr. Lucida had asked if the healing effect could, perhaps, be slowed so it took place gradually over a few days, and Rayna had asked if a sneeze could, perhaps, be slowed so it took place gradually over a few minutes, then apologised for sounding snide.

"Alright, Ms. Marigold." said Dr. Lucida, filling a hypodermic needle with saline. "This is a relatively new medicine, but I'm confident that it will work for you."

"New, huh?" said Ms. Marigold, shifting warily in her seat.

Rayna struggled not to cringe. The patient, Ms. Marigold, had black marbles for eyes, and her second set of ears were tiny, petal-like things, almost invisible beneath her tawny hair; in other words, a guinea pig faunus, who was clearly en garde against any wisecracks, awaiting the soonest opportunity to jump from her chair and yell 'Oh great, thanks, haven't heard that one a million times already.'

"Perfectly safe, I assure you," said Dr. Lucida. "100% of patients so far have responded very well."

"Is this gonna kill my baby-maker?"

A beat. Rayna covered her mouth.

"I beg your pardon?" said the doctor.

"This new stuff." Her right leg bounced at the heel, fingernails plucked at her shirt buttons. Ms. Marigold was a fidgeter, and the perceived threat of infertility only intensified it. "You hear stories, you know. About what they put in shots. It's not gonna, like, dry me up or anything, right? I'm getting married in a couple of months."

"Oh, congratulations!"

Dr. Lucida closed her eyes.

Rayna's voice, she'd discovered, was not the sort you heard unless you were listening for it…except when something pleased or excited her. Then her emotions just seemed to fill her lungs and surge out in a joyous, unbidden squeal, loud enough to quiet a crowd, and she'd shrink under the resulting stares.

Which she did.

"'anks," mumbled Miss Marigold.

The doctor shook her head. "There are no known side effects, Miss Marigold."

"I dunno. I dunno." Her leg moved in a blur. "How new is 'new'? I dunno."

"Miss Marigold. As I said, your symptoms are consistent with IBS. It's either this or a restricted diet and laxative suppositories for the rest of your life."

Medical school taught many lessons. There was the cold, intricate science; anatomy, virology, the mechanisms of chemical compounds with oppressively complex names; but there were also the mundane, earthy sort of lessons, the first being that a patient would agree to absolutely anything if you mentioned suppositories as an alternative.

On cue, Ms. Marigold went still, then nodded, ashen.

After administering the injection, Dr. Lucida beckoned to Rayna, who delicately took Miss Marigold's arm and pressed a wad of cotton into the needle wound.

"Wow." Miss Marigold un-slouched, flexing her abdomen experimentally. "Hey. I swear I can feel that working already."

Then another of those stories; you know, the ones about what they put in shots; surfaced like a swamp bubble in her mind, and her eyes became slits. "This isn't addictive, right? I'm not gonna be selling back-alley handjobs for another hit, am I?"

"Unless the whim should strike you, no," said Dr. Lucida. "One dose is enough for anyone. Now remember, plenty of fluids."

"Plenty of fluids. Got it."

"By fluids I mean water."

"Right, right."

"No alcohol until the wedding."

"Aw, what?"

Dr. Lucida suppressed a grin. Miracles that demanded sacrifices were just transactions.

She led Miss Marigold, the last patient of the evening, to the exit and nodded her farewell. Halfway down the steps, Miss Marigold stopped prodding at her stomach and turned, fixing the doctor with an earnest look.

"Thank you," she said.

Once she'd gone, Dr. Lucida nudged Rayna with an elbow. "That one was yours."

"What do you mean?" said Rayna.

"When you're on nurse duty…" That was, Rayna had realised, their code phrase."…and a patient says 'thank you', it's for you. Even if they say it to me. I want to make sure you know that."

"Oh." Rayna smiled meekly and scratched her jawline. "Don't worry about it, really. Doesn't matter who's thanking who as long as I'm helping."

"It does matter," said the doctor. "Thanks are our wages. Our reminder of the difference we're making. Tea?"

"No, I'm fine."

Dr. Lucida strode to the corner and flicked the electric kettle sitting on the countertop, next to a box of teabags. Chamomile. Same as always. She dropped one into her plain, white mug, then laid her palms across the wood.

"My business cards are making the rounds. Before long, this place will be packed full, open to close, every day. We may not be able to see everyone right away, even with your input."

Rayna stepped forward, craning her neck as far as courtesy would allow. The doctor's eyes were pointed at the wall, but not looking at it.

"We're two people against the suffering of a species, Miss Cirrostra. Sooner or later, we won't be enough. Sooner or later, we will let someone down. So save up those thanks. Remember each and every one. It's a small comfort, but you'll be needing it when the day comes."

The kettle hissed, and hissed, and hissed, and stopped. Dr. Lucida filled her mug and set it on her desk so softly that it made no sound, her fingers staying curled around the handle.

"It doesn't have to be just the two of us," Rayna quavered.

The doctor looked up abruptly, as if she'd forgotten she wasn't alone.

"There'll be other volunteers, won't there?" said Rayna. "Maybe no humans, but…"

Good. Innocent, but not naïve.

"…but the faunus will want to help. Won't they? I'm surprised there aren't any here already."

"Some have offered," said the doctor. "I always decline."

"What?" Confusion twisted her brow. "Why?"

Dr. Lucida eased herself into her chair, cupping her hands around the mug. "What do they have to make amends for?"

Hanging on the back wall, an old pendulum clock, straddling the line between classic and obsolete, ticked ten long seconds into the silence.

"That's not right."

"Excuse me?"

Rayna drew a chest-puffing breath, gripped the flaps of her trouser pockets and, with visible and near-pained exertion, pushed her line of sight into the doctor's.

"This is supposed to be a faunus clinic, isn't it? Don't you think they'd feel more comfortable if they had some of their own people working here?"

"Perhaps, but I doubt we'll be lucky enough to find another willing physician among them. They'll still be placing themselves in human care."

"That's not the point. How do you think that makes them feel, when they want to contribute and you say no? Like you don't trust them enough to do it?"

For a split second, the eye contact faltered, but Rayna set her jaw and blinked tightly, forcing it back.

"I mean…'making amends'? Is that what this is about? Are we here to treat sick faunus, or are we just here to show them not all humans are bad? Two people isn't enough. You just said it, right there a minute ago. How can you turn down volunteers, knowing that? It's their lives. Their problems. They shouldn't need your permission to help fix them."

The doctor sat motionless. Rayna, her willpower spent, lowered her head and began wringing her fingers.

"I'm sorry," she said, nearly whispering. "I don't mean to be rude. It's your clinic, you run it how you think it needs to be run. But that's how I feel."

Dr. Lucida pinched a corner of the teabag that floated just above the water line, fishing it out and depositing it in the small waste bin at her feet. She raised the mug to her nose, inhaled the steam, and sipped.

"That will be all for today, Miss Cirrostra. As always, thank you for your assistance."

Beneath a sky tinted orange by the receding sun, Ruby, Weiss and Yang walked the long, ostentatious path back to Beacon Academy, cutting a line through the lazy zig-zag of teenagers with nowhere in particular to be

Or rather, Weiss and Yang walked. Ruby was slumped over her sister's back, arms untidily draped across her shoulders.

"Feeling any better, rosebud?" said Yang.

"Bleeehhh," said Ruby, and buried her face in Yang's hair.

"Damn. That bad, huh?" She grinned sidelong at Weiss. "Normally I get hit when I call her that in front of other people."

"She'll get no sympathy from me," said Weiss, though her constant glances suggested it wasn't absent, merely withheld. "She was warned. Frankly, I'm surprised at that doctor. She shouldn't have let herself be talked into it."

"S'fine," croaked Ruby. "If I can get into Beacon two years early, I can do anything two years early."

"Not anything, kid," said Yang, with a playful but chiding lilt. "I catch you with the wrong kind of bottle and Dad's getting an email. In all caps."

"Why did you want to go so badly?" asked Weiss. Her index finger shot up in anticipation. "And don't say it's just because everyone else was going. You're the one who told us about it in the first place."

Ruby didn't answer, and Yang's lush mane concealed her expression. Her only response was a slight shift of grip, her arms linking together to clutch her sister more tightly.

Just as Weiss opened her mouth again; Did you hear me?; Yang chimed in.

"Hospitals need as much blood as they can get."

"Yes," said Weiss, gaze lingering on Ruby for a moment. "Obviously. But they do build a surplus, you know. I can't imagine there's some terrible drought."

"Your imagination isn't that good, then. There's only just enough to spare inside the kingdoms. Outside…y'know. Blood doesn't keep long, even if you're not using it, so you need it on the regular. And if you ever want to make a bigwig laugh, ask to set up a supply line in Grimm territory."

Yang paused to readjust her hold on Ruby's legs. When she resumed her pace, it was more gentle, more deliberate, perhaps not to jostle her passenger so much.

"Besides. Once people start bleeding out, even if you can keep them alive, all that pain and panic just draws more Grimm. I guess they figure anyone who goes out there either won't get hurt or won't come back. No sense wasting the resources."

Weiss stared at her, alight with curiosity and a trace of deference. "I had no idea that was such an issue."

"Dad told us."

"Someone should see to it. There should be…" Her synapses flared, conjuring a dozen possible solutions, then burying them beneath a thousand definite complications. "…procedures. For hunters, especially! Considering the work they do, the least they're owed is some decent medical care."

"Yeah," said Yang. "You'd think."

Years at the Schnee dinner table had attuned Weiss to prickly silences. She could almost predict them by now. Full sentences dwindling to curt fragments. Everyone finding something to look at besides each other, so as not to invite further remark. Yang, for her part, had suddenly decided to avoid the cracks on the pavement, which of course meant focusing on the ground.

Change the subject. Now. A few more seconds and it'll be unsalvageable.

"Well," she said, with halogen brightness. "I doubt they'll need mine much, wherever they send it. I'm AB positive."

Yang gave her a look. "Seriously?"

"What?"

"Who actually remembers their blood type? Who even knows it in the first place?"

Someone with a private doctor and a father who insisted on a full physical examination once a month, thought Weiss. She didn't say it, because she was slowly learning the majority attitude towards rich people problems.

"It's called the universal recipient," she said, determined to educate. "AB positives can receive any other kind of blood, but they can only give it to other AB positives. O negative is the opposite. That's the one they look for."

"Trust you to have the best one," said Yang.

Weiss coughed out an exasperated noise. "What do you mean 'best one'? It's only the best one if…"

If you're selfish.

On one hand, that would set herself for a spike. On the other, it wasn't at all like Ruby to ignore a question. Avoid them, yes. Questions like "Have you finished that assignment yet?" or "Who keeps leaving towels on the floor?" produced a certain sputtering, neck-rubbing reaction that conveyed more truth than actual syllables, but here, she hadn't even attempted an answer.

Which meant she wasn't happy.

"If you're an utterly self-absorbed egomaniac." Throwing oneself on a sword was not to be done with half a heart.

"Exactly!" crowed Yang.

Ruby kept her peace even then, but a telltale dimple pitted her cheek, and Weiss basked in the quiet dignity of unsung martyrdom.

"Hmph," she said.

"I bet it came out blue."

"Shut up."

"I bet that poor nurse stuck you and thought 'Holy shit.'"

"Shut up."

When they arrived back at their dorm room, Blake gave them her usual welcome, which is to say that she looked up from whatever book she was reading. Briefly.

"Looks like someone learned a lesson," she said, taking note of Ruby.

"Ah, she'll live," said Yang. "Right, rosebud?"

Slowly, Ruby raised one arm high in the air, balled her fist, and let it fall on Yang's head in the most anaemic hammerstrike ever thrown by a trained warrior.

"There she is."

Yang knelt, allowing Ruby to half-slide, half-tumble onto one of the bunks; Weiss', who graciously and wisely chose not to object; then closed her fingers over the spine of Blake's book and pulled downwards, lowering the paper shield.

"Alright," she said. "You and the doctor. Let's hear it."

The wand swirled, smearing the blood at its tip, spreading it watercolour thin into four neat circles.

The hand waited.

The second and fourth circles held their shape, smooth and glistening.

The first and third circles broke, splitting into an ugly, grainy agglutinate, a network of white capillaries showing through the red.

A positive. Record and shelve.

The hand took a fresh vial, painted another four circles, waited.

The first broke. The second broke. AB negative. Record and shelve.

Another vial. Another four circles. The second broke. B negative. Also thrombocytosis positive. Record and shelve. Send a letter.

Vial. Circles. Wait.

The circles held.

The hand waited.

The circles held.

O negative. Clean. Donor name: Ruby Rose.

Retain.