Chapter 1 - Struggles

Weiss and Yang deal with life after the Fall of Beacon.

The punch came straight for her face.

It was easy enough to block with her left forearm, but she had to dodge backwards to avoid the other fist that followed it.

Yang ground her teeth in frustration at being forced to retreat. Her dad was on her in less than a second, sending a left kick at her head. She ducked and tried to sweep kick for his leg, but he was too fast and slid back and out of her range.

There was barely a pause as he quickly pressed forward with another combo of punches and elbows at her face and midsection. The barrage of attacks easily overwhelmed her and she was again forced to retreat.

The hits she took were just several of many she had received that day. It made Yang's patience for being on the defensive and taking her time falter. The blond instinctively threw her own punch, but Taiyang easily blocked. She aimed a kick at his side in reply and was summarily thrown to the ground when he caught her kick. She laid on her back starting straight at the sky and hit the ground with her fist out of frustration.

Her golden hair was splayed around her and her pants and jacket were covered in dust from their prolonged sparing and being thrown to the ground so many times. She had no desire to continue, so instead she watched a noisy black bird fly overhead as her dad walked over to offer her a hand up. Yang obstinately ignored his gesture for help and stood on her own.

Taiyang awkwardly drew back his refused hand and took a step back to give her some space, "You need to keep training your footwork and evasion. I know your old style was to take the hit and never retreat, but if you want to improve you need to adapt to the-" he paused, looking for the right words, "change in your body."

She hated that. Like it wasn't bad enough that she had lost her dominant arm, she also had to contend with people's pity and verbal tiptoeing . It was just one more reminder on top of the hundreds that she dealt with everyday that she was incomplete. It had taken her over two months to be able to complete simple daily tasks again. For a long time she held out hope that when she no longer had to struggle with everyday things like opening a door, taking a call, or even feeding herself that maybe she would be able to stop the constant nagging feeling of being broken and inadequate. It hadn't helped. She still woke up every morning wishing everything that night had been a dream; but as soon as the fog of sleep lifted, the sight and lingering pain of her missing limb quickly brought back her feelings of anger and abandonment.

No, the pity certainly didn't help. How was she ever supposed to "improve" if other people kept treating her like she was going to shatter if they said the wrong thing?

"Don't do that," she growled at her father.

Tai sighed heavily when he caught her meaning. He visibly slumped when he sat down on the old and worn stairs that lead to the front of their house.

"I'm sorry kiddo. I just worry sometimes that if I say the wrong thing it will set you back." He motioned for her to sit on the porch with him. She sauntered over to take her own seat and brooded at the setting sun so she didn't have have to make eye contact with her father.

"You've been a lot more… sensitive since it happened, which is totally understandable," he rushed to say. He waited for her reaction and when she didn't give one he continued, "I know you feel pretty lost right now, but I think that if you just keep moving forward a little by little, soon you won't be so angry and depressed all the time."

She knew that her father meant well and that he just loved her and wanted her to be happy, but her whole life had been ruined and all anybody seemed to care about was her getting 'back to normal.' As if getting back to her normal life was even possible. She had all but given up on being a huntress, despite her father's insistence that she continue to train. Yang just didn't see the point.

Her eyes flashed with anger, "I don't care if I improve! Nothing I do is going to make my arm grow back, and nothing I do is going to change the fact that my team is gone. I'm useless to them anyhow. I'll never be as strong as I used to be."

"Yang, your recovery isn't about them. It needs to be about you." Taiyang sighed and didn't continue. They both looked at anything but each other as the chirping insects signaled the close of the day. Her refusal to say anything in return forced her father to break the heavy silence between them, "Sometimes I regret that you are so much like me."

She looked at him quizzically, a little of her anger seeping away, "What are you talking about?"

He signed into his words, "I mean, I've been through the same thing you are going through right now and I was consumed by the same feelings."

She looked at him in disbelief, then looked at her missing arm, then back at him, then back at her missing arm again. Her wide eyes and angry scowl reading, Really?!

"Okay," he raised his hands in apology, "so obviously not exactly the same thing. Jeez it was supposed to be a metaphor. Or is it an analogy?… anyhow, the point is I know what it's like to lose something… and what it's like to be left behind."

She glared out into the forest that surrounded their house. He wasn't wrong about that, she had seen her dad fall apart more than once over being left. But despite the truth of his words they didn't help to dissolve the agitation that made up the real cause of her frustrations.

"Left behind or not, this," She gestured sharply to her missing limb, "is still my biggest problem. I can't do anything till I figure out how to deal with it. I'm not useful to anyone."

Her dad placed his hand on her knee and looked at her with a half smile of encouragement, "Kiddo, I'm your dad. I know you better than anyone. Nothing holds you back if you want something bad enough. That arm isn't the problem."

Yang looked at him with her, as of late, normal stare of disbelieving annoyance. Feeling bad that she couldn't show her father the appreciation that such kind words deserved, she instead clenching her jaw at her inability to show the proper emotion.

"I understand why you're frustrated. You've been working for six months and you still don't feel like it's enough." He paused as he seemed to brace himself for what he was going to say next. "And you're right, your recovery so far has been going at a pretty shitty pace."

Yang looked over at him not in anger but surprise. This was the first time since she came home that he had talked to her so honestly.

He seemed to relax a little after realized that she wasn't going to try to pummel him and continued, "Right now the real thing that is holding you back is that you are still upset about being left." He took a minute to let his words sink in and then looked at her knowingly, "I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it is because someone in particular left."

Yang looked away not wanting to confirm or deny his accusation.

"Look I know you don't want to talk about what happened between you two, and I promised I'd stop asking. But I'm your dad, so I have to say this." He rubbed the back of his head and grinned, "Even though I know you're not going to listen and will inevitably have to figure it out the hard way."

He looked her straight in the eye and plainly stated, "Learn from my mistakes. You shouldn't chase after someone who is always running away. If you do, you'll just keep getting hurt and miss out on meeting someone who you can really rely on." He paused with a long sigh, "I know you're too much like me to just stop having feelings because someone tells you to, but a least try to stop fixating long enough to get back to where you want to be. Fixation is… really unhealthy," he ended in a way that made it crystal clear he was talking about his own past.

Yang glared at the ground.

This isn't like him and my mother, it's different. Blake, is different.

She let her stubbornness ease; maybe some of what he said was right. In six months she had failed to make the progress either she or her father were hoping for and Yang knew her company was abysmal. Even Zwei walked on eggshells around her.

"So what do ya say?" He stood and offered her his hand with his best smile, "There are people who want to you help you. You just need to let them give you a hand."

She pretended to scowl at him, "Nope, way to soon. That joke was too disarming." She smirked and grabbed his extended hand.

He smiled and pulled her into a rib crushing hug, "I love you kiddo."

She nuzzled her face into his strong warm shoulder and sighed, "Me too dad, me too."

Just one more meeting left.

Closing her scroll the white haired woman leaned back into her office chair with a sigh. A weary smile crept at the corners of her mouth when she closed her eyes. She had closed three contracts for the company today that in total would net the company five million lein. The best part was that she had been able to do it all above board and without lowering the company's integrity like her father would have done. Weiss felt proud that she was able to make a difference, even if there were still far larger problems that she lacked the power to rectify.

Hopefully in time.

She let out another sigh and when she opened her tired blue eyes they came to rest on the framed picture of her team. Weiss felt her little glimmer of joy sink out of existence. For the thousandth time in the past six months she thought about how much she missed them. Being trapped in Atlas was crushingly lonely. Her only reprieve came twice a month when she was able to have coffee with her sister. Other than Winter and the occasional meeting with her father about her inadequacy, Weiss was utterly alone. Again. At times her loneliness felt so familiar that it was like she hadn't even gone to Beacon and found something better. Other days she missed her friends so badly that she wished she had never even met them. She was convinced that her loneliness would would hurt less if she didn't have to deal with the knowledge that she might not ever be allowed to see them again. The ache in her chest continued to deepen at an inversely proportional rate to her dwindling hope the longer they were apart.

So she threw herself into her work. The less time she had to think, the longer she was able to hold back her feelings. Whatever time wasn't spent working she would spend at her private gym. She would train to stay busy but also because a small part of her couldn't let go of the hope that one day she might find a way to be with them again. Despite her current situation and their virtually nonexistent contact with her.

Ruby was the only one who called her, usually monthly, to give her an update on things. She was "slaying monsters and saving the day" just like she had always said she would. Ever the optimist, the younger girl would say how well she, Nora, Ren, and even Jaune were doing, often recounting her latest new move or her grimm count. Ruby would occasionally slip up and tell her how bad things were in the other kingdoms, but with Weiss's resources at the Schnee Dust Company, she already knew. The heiress would find herself smiling at the excited countenances of Ruby's adventures and frown a little when they inevitably came to the end.

For she knew what came next. Without fail their conversations would always end the same way, each taking turns asking about any news of their other two teammates, but the answers were always the same.

Neither of them had directly heard anything about Blake, but based on the rumors that Ruby was hearing in the field and from what Weiss could glean from company reports they suspected she was working to take down small cells of the White Fang. But with Blake it was hard to know for sure. And for Weiss sadness was always quickly replaced with a twinge of anger at the faunus's unexplained actions and her refusal to, yet again, let her team in. Her fist tightened as she thought about how Blake had selfishly left them with no explanation. She sighed, sometimes she didn't believe the faunus would ever truly change.

Poor Yang.

Weiss's loneliness would always triple at the thought of the once vivacious brawler. The heiress still tried to call her at least once a week and each time she left her a message saying that she missed her and hoped she was doing well. Yang had only ever picked up the phone once. It was about a month after the fall of the academy when minor tower signals had first been reestablished, and it had been a short conversation. Weiss had to do virtually all of the talking and had only managed to drag out a few answers from the once annoyingly boisterous blond.

Yang had asked her just one thing the whole conversation, 'Where's Blake?' Weiss had nearly bit her tongue till it bled to stop herself from saying what she had wanted to. Instead she told her once fearsome teammate that she didn't know but she was looking. The heiress could forgive Blake for a lot of things, but she worried that she might not ever forgive Blake for what she had done to Yang. Weiss could only imagine how badly Yang was hurting at her abandonment. Not that Yang would ever willingly admit that to anyone.

The day that Yang and Weiss had searched for Blake, the first time she ran off, Weiss had asked the blond why she of all people could be so calm about the whole ordeal. Yang brushed her off, but after eight hours of searching and Weiss's 'constant whining,' she finally got her answer. And truthfully Weiss never could have predicted what her teammate shared with her.

Yang told her how she had been abandon by her mother, lost her step-mother Summer and, for a time, lost her father to depression. Even her drunkard of an uncle was gone far more than he was present in her life. Yang confessed that she couldn't let anyone on their team be taken away, because she needed them more than she liked to admit.

It was the first time that Yang had been so open and vulnerable in front of Weiss. From then on the heiress knew there was much more to her teammate than she let on, and that the two of them had far more in common than they ever would have imagined.

In their short time at Beacon Weiss had grown close enough to the brawler to know that, in a way, Blake leaving had damaged Yang more than her missing limb ever would. Even their dimwitted and often naive leader knew why, but they never voiced it out loud. Ruby must have known that it would just send Weiss into an unproductive rant. Every time Ruby managed to call, Weiss was surprised at how grownup their leader sounded and how much she was changing.

We've all probably changed in our time apart.

Her thoughts drifted back to Yang, as they inevitably did, and she felt a familiar ache in her chest. There were so many times that the heiress would have jumped on a ship to go see her, but her father had made sure that it was impossible. The first thing he had done after bringing her back to Atlas was have Ironwood revoke all of her travel privileges outside of the city.

Weiss ground her teeth as she was once again reminded that she was kept in a gilded cage by her father. She never should have gone with him when he came for her at Beacon. A little voice in the back of her head laughed at her for thinking she had any power or choice when it came to her father's wishes and that their was little use lamenting a team she would never see again. The voice made her feel sad, exhausted, and defeated. It was an all too frequent and familiar combination of emotions since she had come home.

Her scroll interrupted her thoughts as it hummed a reminder that her last meeting of the day was approaching. Pushing her feelings to the side, she thrust her mind back into work.

The heiress straightened in her chair before tapping the intercom button on her desk's control dock, "Glenn, please tell Fredric to bring the car around, I would like to get to the next meeting early. Simon and Tolley always try to use their early arrival as a power play and I've had just about enough of it. Then call Bunchworth and tell him to have my gym set for scenario twenty-three by eighteen hundred hours." No doubt she'd need to vent her frustration after dealing with Simon and Tolley.

"Of course, Ms. Schnee," her administrative assistant answered. "Will there be anything else? Perhaps dinner arrangements?"

"No, thank you Glenn. I'll mange on my on my own tonight."

The heiress stood and smoothed the lines of her dress. She opened her scroll to check her makeup and her hair, then slid the screen to make sure that she had all the documents she would need to counter each of the ridiculous demands that the coming negotiation would bring. After a week of meetings she still had not made any real progress against those two. With everything in order she shut her scroll and took a deep breath before reminding herself.

You're a Schnee, weakness is not an option.