Wow, what could be worse, a sudden end of semester party, where four schools finest, usually meaning their oldest students, turns it into a frat party of epic proportions. Well how about a drunken Knight that got hooked up with a really quiet party girl? How could THAT go wrong?

Neapolitan with an Extra Scoop of French Vanilla

by

Hibiki

Beta'd by

Hibiki and his iphone for days afterward.

Imagine you could have the rights to RWBY, but for the rest of your life, you would have to clean up every mess or problem created by every Rooster Teeth 'Million Dollars, But..." challenge accepted. Would it be worth it? Not for me.

RWBY is created by Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth.

Chapter Five: Frostbite

-o0O0o-

It was a cold war, two sides maintaining their superiority with quiet malice and hidden strength the rest of the crowd could feel emanating from the two slender figures. As if the first one to speak would be the first to falter.

'Jaune should have cracked by now.', Nickolas thought bemusedly to himself, though his outward expression was certainly just as calm and guarded as his wife's was tense and pinched. The many long years of marriage had allowed him enough tact to know when to keep his more incendiary thoughts to himself. Being proud of his son when standing up to his mother was definitely one of those thoughts. Having known Juniper for years, even he could see the inner workings of her thought process as she and Jaune stared at one another.

Nicholas took a moment to look around at the room, at the faces of those who apparently were effected by Jaune and his Daughter-in-law's sudden announcement. For one it wasn't that surprising that Jaune's friends were mostly female. Jaune's entire life had been surrounded by females it made sense in a sad way he probably understood girls better than he even realized, but Nick noticed the young man standing next to the short red haired hammer wielder. To him they stood closer than friends, but the distance was there, showing hesitance. Together but yet, not together it seemed. Those two would probably be the most support his boy would get judging from the looks in the room. He instantly recognized the face next to them, but not the emotion it had just shown. Pyrrha Nikos. Why on earth had he not realized it was the Nikos girl when his son had mentioned a Pyrrha on his team. It surprised him to learn Jaune had someone famous on his team but even more so was the look of pain and sadness she was trying to hold back. Sympathy and a little pity went her way, as he realized his son had captured perhaps more hearts than the boy knew moving past her to the shocked and slightly hurt faces of a shorter cape wielder he realized from his son's description as Ruby and, easily recognizable and just as amazingly, one Weiss Schnee. How had his goofball son managed to end up around two very famous people?

-o0O0o-

'Why hasn't my baby boy listening to me?' Juniper's brow twinged as her cerulean eyes glanced over at the small form beside her one and only son. Multicolored eyes and hair, in fact the entire ensemble was just a collection of the three colors that seemed to make up the name of her newest... Daughter. That seemed to make up the most of the first thought Juniper had of the focus of her ire. Short, was the second. Despite everyone sitting down, the woman who seduced her baby boy was barely his chest height next to her son. Was her first grand baby going to be a little person? The third thought was more stung womanly pride than anything. Despite the tiny girl's stature, easily reaching above and over the table was the younger woman's... attributes. This 'Neo' was very endowed, even more than Juniper herself and all of her daughters. Having seen the two of them walk into this room together she had seen how curvy the tramp was and all it made made her think this midget harlot had seduced her naive and innocent little boy.

Her frown tightened and she turned back to her son but was struck dumb by the return. The look in his eyes made her want to cry, her sweetheart who always gave her a valentines, who always followed her around like a lost duckling, was glaring at her after her glare over at his wife. The part of her that wanted to cry took charge and her resolve not to speak broke first. She closed her eyes, failed to compose herself, and with hurt she struck.

"So. You've married this girl and are having a baby-" The sounds of shock and denial behind her made her realize just how incredibly little everyone knew about it. "-And apparently thought nothing of telling anyone. Brilliant Jaune. Absolutely brilliant. That you couldn't even tell me, your mother, is just... painful."

-o0O0o-

Fear should have been his constant companion right now, fear and guilt. But his mother eying up the route to her usual passive aggressive, toppled with the just as quick announcement to literally everyone he knew about his and Neo's pregnancy... Well he was just mad. Mad and just tired of everything.

"I see where you are coming from. Neo however only learned of the pregnancy very recently and the first thing we did was get everything sorted out as we could, which is to say nothing because between a Grimm attack heading towards our hometown that senior huntsmen haven't seen in 15 years-" His parents flinched. "-White Fang destroying Amity Colosseum-" Blake flinched. "-The Breach-" RWBY flinched, Blake looking like a cat sprayed by a water bottle. "-and us trying to find a way to tell people without this... interrogation... taking place, there wasn't time. We were trying to avoid this. With everyone angry or hurt and upset with something that Neo and I are trying to still figure out ourselves." Jaune sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand then continued.

"Once again. I'm sorry. I've hurt everyone here with several things." He looked to his team. "Guys, I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was married. It just... happened and in the end it was for the best now with a baby on the way." He turned to RWBY. "Ladies, I know I've been a bit of trouble with you all, but let me explain in person."

He looked around the room to everyone.

"In fact I will talk to everyone personally and try and fix things. But for those of whom don't want to speak to me after we leave this room, let me once again make this clear. Take this out on me. I am the one truly responsible here. And when she came to me scared-" He ignored the calm hand turning into a claw trying to rip his fingernails off the hand in her lap. "I gave her a promise. That I would be with her, to honor and cherish her. To love and be there for her for as long as she'll have me. I gave her my word." The whole room seemed to deflate at that, and his father intoned with as much seriousness as he did as they spoke the next line together. "And an Arc NEVER goes back on his word." His father closed his eyes and nodded, his mother looked stricken.

"So if me saying that shows I'm still the guy you know, the son, the brother, the teammate, great. However, if despite all of that and everything we have been through if we can't get past this no matter what..." He held back the tears that wanted to fall from knowing how damming his next words would be. "Then I guess this is goodbye." He ignored the stares as he rose, Neo's hand returned to the calm helping hand as she stood with him. "For everyone else. Please give me time to talk to you. It may not be today, but it WILL be soon."

-o0O0o-

Everyone slowly shifted out, leaving just the Arcs in the room. Silence reigned for only a few moments before Junipers angry face dropped and a scared mother appeared. Jaune was enveloped by her seconds later and she began sobbing.

"You're my baby boy! I'd never forsake you! N-Never!" Her arms squeezed so tight he thought he would be unable to breath. "I'm just angry that I couldn't be there. That I didn't get to know this girl whose your wife, that I didn't get to be a part of any of it! But I don't hate you! I love you Jaune!" Jaune squeezed Neo's hand in allowing her to drop his so he could wrap his mom up in a hug.

"I love you too, Mom." He whispered, trying not to cry at his mothers hug he had missed these past few months. "I'm sorry."

-o0O0o-

Unbeknownst to Juniper and Jaune, Neo and Nickolas were about to have a conversation. Neo was watching the two hug out their differences with an ambivalent look of boredom and curiosity. So engrossed she didn't notice the man until he put a hand on her shoulder. Spinning her parasol around, she snapped into a defensive position that didn't phase the older blonde in the slightest. He just smiled amiably. It rather reminded her of her idiot husband's look most of the time.

"Sorry about that, dear. Perhaps we could talk?" Neo looked to Jaune worriedly, Nick misinterpreting the look as worry more than what it truly was. A pointed look promising pain for having to deal with this man. Nonetheless she acquiesced to his request and to a spot opposite of each other on the far end of the table away from the mother/son event down the way. "So, your name is Neo?"

She nodded. He leaned in and he took a good strong look at her. Something deep inside her sparked a niggle of doubt as to his look continued from curious to uneasy.

"You are hiding something." She didn't show it short of her usual smirk wilting a fraction at his words. "I don't know what it is, but I hope it won't hurt your child. Because I know my son. He gave his word. He'll be dead before anything happens to it or you. So I want you to give me a promise." The conviction in his words had her smirk drop completely.

She cocked her head in question.

"That you fix whatever it is you are hiding from him, before it's too late. You're an Arc now, so I should let you know our motto. 'An Arc never goes back on their word'. So I want you to know if you say yes, I will walk away now, knowing you will honor that. But I want you to be honest with me. If you can't then my family will do everything in it's power to protect their own." Those hard jade orbs of the Elder Arc pierced into Neo's soul far greater than anything before, short of those few unguarded moments she had had with Jaune.

"..." Nickolas sat back in his chair, the amiable smile back on his face.

"Good." He took a drink of the offered water that had been forgotten on the table. "I don't know why you don't talk much, you have a very pretty voice." The hollow feeling of an emotion she wasn't use to filled her so much she didn't realize until later that Jaune's father had been able to hear her just as easily as Jaune himself. No, she was too busy feeling guilt about lying to the man's face.

-o0O0o-

The Arc group were leaving the conference room when a voice broke over them. Standing proper and formal was Weiss.

"Jaune, can I have a moment?" Jaune started a moment as for the first time he could honestly admit, Weiss stopped him and not the other way around.

"Uh, Sure Weiss." Neo and his parents watched as he walked away following the white haired girl. They walked for a brief span before turning around a corner into an quiet hallway, devoid of people. Her arms crossed over herself as she turned her icy blue eyes onto him. She coughed politely into her hand before finally speaking.

"I'm not certain how to ask this but... when you flirted with me, especially just before the Vital dance, were you married?" GRK! Jaune's shoulders shook and his pallor was almost as pale as the girl before him. Given the authenticated and 100% truthful document in Vale's system he had been married to Neo since approximately the third day after the party. A full week and a half before the Vytal Dance and Breach. Which means he WAS married when we was trying to woo his Snow Angel.

"A-ah. Yes." Her look was not only disapproving but downright disgusted.

"So you were trying what, with me?" Oh yeah Weiss was pissed, and rightly so. What could he-[DING!] his scroll went off and he raised it up to see it was from Neo asking him to get back so she wasn't alone with her in-laws. The distraction had bought him just enough time to think of a lie for an answer. Apparently he had had far too much practice in the last twenty hours than he would like if that was the case.

"Neo didn't want people to know." He looked away, out the window next to them at the red dawn rising over Forever Fall. "We ended up married so fast because of all of these different things we didn't know what to say to everyone. With everything going on she was nervous how you all would react. She asked me to play the part like nothing changed."

"So the serenade and everything was just your over the top way of..." She trailed off.

"Yeah. You couldn't have accepted those as actual proposals did you?" He laughed off his discomfort. They HAD been actual proposals. "I mean ME singing to get your attention? THE Weiss Schnee who sold out convention halls all though Atlas and Mistral?" She looked perplexed for a moment before shrugging and giving a small smile.

"I see your point. After all you also helped me with Neptune at the dance so I can see it. While I'm not happy to be used as a distraction, and you can let your... wife know that, I DO understand." Weiss then surprised him by pulling him into a hug. "Congratulations on your marriage and your child." It was a hollow thing when it hit him as she let go that was the first physical contact they had ever had. Not to mention...

"Wow. Now that I think about it, you might actually be the first one to say that; Weiss." The girl shrugged, in that weird polite Atlesian way before responding as she walked away.

"Give everyone time, Jaune. I know I won't be the last. I'll see you later." With that she walked away from the young man bathed in red light. He sighed once she was out of earshot, looking to the ceiling with a wistful expression.

"... Goodbye Snow Angel." Goodbye first love. "Hi Weiss." Hello good friend. "... I'm really tired."

[DING!] "Sigh, yes ma'am." He shook his fatigue off and went to go rescue his wife before she murdered someone. He meant it in jest but for some reason it didn't feel like it was that far from the truth.

Little did he know.

-o0O0o-

"Ah, Mr. Arc. Due to the situation with you and your wife, we have managed to provide a room for you two near JNPR's dorm rooms. We have also moved team CENM into the Beacon dormitories for the foreseeable future. These are the rooms in question." Glynda Goodwitch announced as the two of them were walking back to the dorms.

"Right. Thank you Professor." They took the information the older blonde handed out, but paused as she caught their shoulder with a pensive expression.

"I know I might seem a bit strict, especially with you Jaune, but if you two ever need someone to talk to about anything, know that I am here for you. Both of you."

"Thank you, Miss. Goodwitch. We'll remember that." The teacher left and the two of them looked to each other tiredly. "Get out things and meet in this new room in twenty?"

"..." she snarked.

"Yeah I get the couch. I figured that was a given after this day."

-o0O0o-

The -NPR was as quiet as it was cold. The girls huddled as far away from the door as possible, making it hard to gauge their reactions to him as he came to collect his things. Ren sat on his bed, stoic as possible. No one seemed to move as he went to his bed and collected his pack. The blondes eyes darting between his team.

"Guys... I don't know if you heard but they gave me and Neo a room together... I..." No one said anything and the awkward silence filled the air till he couldn't stand it. He finished packing up and laid the number of his new room on the big desk by the door. "I'm... I'm sorry again... If you want to talk... you'll know where I'll be I guess." As the door close he could almost swear he heard someone crying. And his heart grew heavy at the gravity of it all. Thankfully it didn't take him thirty seconds to reach his new room, swiping the door with his scroll he entered a normal dorm room except for one big alteration. In lieu of four twin beds this one only had a single queen sized bed. Laying in the center of the bed was Neo playing with something on her phone.

"So... your team give you the cold shoulder too?" Jaune remarked. Neo merely looked to him, shaking her head. In fact, it seemed to Neo that Cinder was ecstatic about being brought into the same hallway as her prey.

"Oh. So just mine." Great. Jaune thought. "I'm going to take a bath then go to bed." She waved him off distractedly, apparently he was less important than the scroll game she was playing. As the water hit his aching back he couldn't even fake it to himself that it was the shower head producing the streams of water that slipped down his cheeks. He had his 'wife', his friends, even his parents and little sister nearby yet he had never felt this alone in his life. Without a doubt, Jaune rationalized, this day had to be considered the worst in his short life. Hopefully with some sleep, things would look better tomorrow.

Little did he know...

-o0O0o-

Next Chapter: A carpenter's work is never done.

AN:

The FOURTH rewrite. And no, not because I didn't like it, but because I must be a walking EMP.

I killed off three USBs only keeping the barest of bits of this chapter each time. I had a Juniper/Jaune fight version, a Weiss heavy reaction one, a rebuild of Weiss' and now this one.

HOWEVER

It also did not help that since I last put up a chapter, I have lost my store, spent far more time effort and money getting said store put into storage, and then searching for a job, giving up after 14 months due to having 16 years experience in a field that is now dead in my area due to the advent of camera phones and Walmart like competitors. Apparently this left me typecast into it. It finally culminated into me getting a full time job working in a warehouse with some friends who knew I badly needed a job. Having no experience in the job I had to learn from the ground up... oh and also rebuild my feet as I learned they haven't been in the correct shape since birth due to said job and have spent the last nine months in massive pain trying to learn how to walk again after this was addressed. All the while refusing to stop working due to my Mother loosing her job mere hours after I acquired one, BTW that was her Christmas gift year before last, those assholes. It seems that real life likes to take as much as it can as of late. Annoying as that has been its only now that it has been calming down to the point I can even think of looking at these stories. Expect even slower updates than before my unwanted hiatus due to all this as I'll only have a limited couple of hours each week to write. Sorry for all of that.

Reviews:

The Immortal Doctor Reid : True True. I do feel pretty damned at the moment.

hentai18ancilla: This is the Pyrrha that would have been learning of the maidens powers within days had the Vytal festival not been put on hiatus. So yes, like most Pyrrha's who are still alive in fictions but said fictions end up in a non-Arkos friendly way the poor girl ends up being too late.

theycallmebeanz: Oddly enough for what it's worth Jaune got what he wanted, so he 'won' but I think both feel that they fought even at all that it was a loss. Yes Neo will be growing more.

VoidHart: So... You probably died from withdrawal by now. Sorry. RL is a B*tch.

Guest: Thanks, and sorry all the same.

patleon909: I'll have to see. Mostly I seem to Ship Nightshade lately. Arkos still seems like the wound is fresh to me. Volume 4-5 hasn't helped me get over 3's evil evil end well.

Cain: Working on it.

Amvmaster: Uh okay.

AZalmega: Fluent doesn't seem to fit me some days, but I will try. Cinder's time will come, when things really get moving.

LogAtt: Given my last look at the voting it appears like poor Jaune is going to be starting a Baskin Robbins here soon. The cover story is the weaker part of my rambling little thing, so it may take a while before it pops out.

redwolf23456: Thanks.

Zero testarossa: In Volume One, you are correct. However like everyone's art designs were altered in some ways to better suit the individuality of the character as CRWBY and the shows took off, so were her eyes. Volume Two, Volume Three, Four, Five, and the RWBY Chibis, Nora Valkyrie has teal green eyes. So consider the fact straightened. Just re watched the battle in Kuroyuki to make sure of it.

Suzaku21: Thanks, glad to hear but sorry for the horribly late update.

Axe: God I hope I can too!

Locothehood: Probably. Aura is painful to Grimm. And are you asking me if I could write a story about Cinder getting knocked up by Jaune?

Until next time, Keep Moving Forward!