Story Information: This story was written as a one-shot after Volume 4 of RWBY finished. It was then expanded into a full story and was completed before the start of Volume 5. This means that everything was written with the knowledge of the show up through Volume 4, so things like Renora are already established, but the knowledge that Ozpin is the wizard and has always escaped death were not known.

Beyond that, most details ended up being close enough. This note is here to let you, the reader, know what context the story is written in.

Author's Note: This story began as a one-shot, then a two-shot, and from there was expanded into a full story. If you see this note, that means that I have gone back and revised all of the author's notes as well as unified my headers and formatting. Enjoy.

Prologue

(Jaune's POV)

As I excused myself from the room, I walked outside to find it raining. It was just a light rain, not one of those downpours that makes everything seem gloomy, but it still fit the mood. Ren and Nora had fallen asleep during the movie they picked out for us, and it was just…hard to watch it. It was some rom-com that Nora picked at random, and since she had won the sparring match earlier (handily), we had no choice but to comply. So with those two asleep on the couch, I was left to watch a movie about the hot but lonely girl who had a crush on the lovable loser, who was in turn clueless.

Yeah, that irony was not lost on me. I left about halfway through the movie, but decided to come back and watch the rest before I got out the door. I regretted coming back to watch it, though, because in the end everything works out well and they get together. But it's what didn't happen in the movie that hurt more.

There was no scene where the guy got slammed into a wall, no plots about cities being destroyed, no magical powers, and no one died.

And that's why I'm walking through the rain. I just need to clear my head, but every time I try I just bring up something new that bothers me.

Sadness over Pyrrha's death I pushed away only to dwell on all the times I never noticed how she felt. I pushed that away, and I my mind went to how distraught she was before her fight. As I pushed away dwelling on how I mishandled that situation, my mind made the connections between how I could have stopped her from fighting Cinder if I had handled things better earlier.

Heck, if I had noticed her anytime sooner and had actually built a relationship, would she have still been willing to push me away at the end?

Pushing these thoughts out of my head isn't working. I need a better way to deal with this, but after this long I still haven't found a solution.

As I looked up at a sign in front of me, a thought ran across my head: maybe I just need something stronger to clear my mind.

The sign in front of me read: Huntsmen and Huntresses! Show us your weapon and drinks are half-off!

A bar. In all honesty, trying to drink this away is a terrible idea. I've never had alcohol before and would have no clue what I'm doing, not to mention I don't exactly know these streets well and couldn't get back. I don't even know what the drinking age here is, but if they have one it probably isn't 17.

Despite all that, I walked in determined to find out how much it would take to wash it all away.

A rainy Tuesday night did not translate into much foot traffic at this bar. It wasn't even specifically a bar, just a restaurant that had an independent bar built into it. There were some people off in a corner booth, but no one at the bar itself. I took a seat at the barstool and the bartender looked up from the glass he was cleaning.

"Your sign mentioned Huntsmen?" I asked.

"It does. You look pretty young for one. Where's your weapon?"

Thankfully, I don't like going anywhere without it strapped on, so I drew my sword and offered it to him.

"Ah, no thanks, that's all I need to see. What'll it be for you?"

"Whatever makes me forget what's wrong the fastest." I answer more somberly than I intended as I put my weapon up.

"That's not going to work very well, son." A voice from behind came, with its owner taking a seat next to me. "First time drinking?"

"Is it that obvious?" I asked, slightly discouraged for some reason.

"Yeah. Drinking alone isn't going to make you feel better until you black out; taking a nap is just as effective, without the potential for turning you into an alcoholic loser. If you want to drink to forget, you gotta be drinking with someone. Barny…" he said, now addressing the bartender, "…yeah, good to be back here too. Just give me a bottle of vodka, and two glasses."

"Two glasses?" I asked, suspecting that the second was for me.

"Yup. Looks like you're not drinking alone tonight." The man said as the bottle and glasses were placed on the counter in front of us. He opened it and poured two shots. "So, what exactly are you trying to forget?"

I didn't respond right away. I picked up the shot glass and stared at it for a moment before shrugging and attempting a shot.

"Oh god, that's terrible." I wheezed out with a cough.

The man just laughed and refilled our glasses. As he did so (and as I fought off the last shot I took), I took a moment to examine him. He was taller than me by about an inch, and all around was built about the same as me, but with no doubts that he was significantly stronger than I was. As I looked down, I realized that he was carrying a weapon—he was a Huntsman. He carried two swords, one on each hip, and on his back he had a round shield.

A round shield, not unlike how Pyrrha had a round shield, although his was a full circle and did not have a 'bite' out of it.

As soon as his shield reminded me of Pyrrha, I reached out for my shot glass and quickly downed its contents, much to the protest of my mouth and throat.

"Hey now, that's more like it!" The man teased with a genuine, hearty laugh followed by him taking his next shot. He began refilling the glasses. "So, you're pretty young for a Huntsman, and very young for a Huntsman in need of a cleared head…"

I sat there, staring at my glass and wondering how long it would be before these things kicked in. The last shot had taken my mind off of Pyrrha, but at the expense of sucking just as much as the first one.

"Yeah. I'm not certain whether I'm technically allowed to be called a full Huntsman yet. I was at Beacon…" I answered quietly.

"That's…that's a damn shame, what happened there." He answered with a softened gaze before turning his eyes to his glass. After a few moments he picked it up and downed it. "I'm guessing that's how you ended up here? The bar, I mean…"

I went ahead and matched him by drinking my own shot. It still sucked, but I think I'm starting to numb to it.

"Yeah. My team—what remains of it—we teamed up with another student and came here because that's where they think the next attack is most likely."

Suddenly, I started to feel the effects of my shots coming on strong, and while it panicked me initially I decided not to fight it. The opposite, actually, as I was still very much planning on drinking till I blacked out.

"I'm…sorry to hear that. My wife and I were glued to the TV set just before the CCT went down."

That sounded familiar, and I couldn't think of why. He has a wife? That's not it. CCT? I mean it went down but that isn't what feels familiar. TV? What was the last thing I saw on TV? It's been a while since I've gotten to…

Oh. The last program on TV was the Vytal Festival. The very last fight before everything went to hell was…

I took my next shot.

Pyrrha V. Penny

I barely noticed my new friend take a shot with me.

I glanced back at him, hoping to find some detail to focus on to distract me. Instead, I found I couldn't focus on anything and only really saw the colors of his outfit and weapons. His weapons…they were…they had that orange-ish bronze tint to them, just like…

Pyrrha's.

My mind started racing—hazily, now—to find any connections, but fell short. Pyrrha is from Mistral, right? Maybe that's just the handiwork of a popular blacksmith. P-Money was…hell, did I really just think 'P-Money'?...she was semi-famous here and even had that cereal contract. She probably had her weapons like…super top notch. So this guy probably is a good Huntsman to afford that too, right?

"I need another drink." I mumbled as I reached for the shot glass.

"It's your teammate, isn't it? You said what remains of your team earlier. Who did you lose?" He asked while taking a shot to keep up with me.

"Everyone says…they say it isn't my fault. And…it's not. But…if I—I could have—there are so many things I could have done to change it. She didn't have to die."

"Tell me about her, then. What happened?" He asked while reaching over to refill my glass.

I'm not certain how talking about this is supposed to help me forget it, but I'm also no expert at drinking, so…

"She was just…she was better than us all, and she was just so…nice. And shy, and humble, and gorgeous, and…she deserved a statue just for who she was, not to mention the fact she was a badass."

"HA. Sounds like my wife, actually." He responded cheerfully, but also quiet enough as to not interrupt my chain of thought.

"Then you've got me, the bumbling idiot who can't fight and…shhhh, don't tell anyone…cheated my way into Beacon. The lovable loser, minus the lovable part. So I spend our whole like first semester chasing after some…rich girl who's not even like half of her and the whole time I'm too damn stupid to see how much she likes me."

I took my next shot, and he took one to keep up, although it wasn't having nearly the effect on him as it was on me.

"Ah. Now you sound like me…" He mumbled softly.

"Badass queen of the school, undefeated in sparring, and she's too shy to tell me—like, literally the worst guy there—how she felt. And even though she spent time every night helping me train without asking for any favors and always supporting me, I still didn't have a clue. So it takes her a year to drop a hint so big it gets through my skull, and like an idiot I sat on that info…kinda because I was shocked and also I had no clue what to do…for a little while."

I took another shot. He kept up again.

"So during the Festival…she's really distant and upset and I…I tried to help her out and somehow ended up with her napping on my shoulder, suddenly aware that I now have like the highest tier girlfriend possible."

"So you still didn't know until then?" He asked, semi-incredulously.

"No-nope! So she wakes up and apparently has an exi…existen…some crisis thing…"

"Existential?"

"That's it! Exi-whatsit crisis. So she turns to me—like, the worst person to ask for advice, but also the crush she had finally hooked—and asks like theoretical questions and…well, I didn't know better and just wanted to sound good, so I-I just said, like, that nothing should hold her back. Sounds pretty smart, right?"

I took my shot while waiting for his answer.

"I guess so. Depends on what's holding her back…"

"F*cking exactly! Turns out, in this situation, the goofy blonde idiot that she had desired—wait, that sounds intense—wanted for a year and like finally had gotten through to…that's me…was what was holding her back."

"That's not good."
"No-nope. So she slams me into a wall—which hurt like hell, by the way—and runs off. So later during the attack on Beacon—oh yeah, all of this happened that day—after some magical bullshit and chaos, I'm just completely confused and she says she has to go back and fight the magical powers evil lady, and I'm all like 'no that's a bad idea you'll die you should do tha'—and she cuts me off by kissing me."

I reached out for another shot, my hand shaking. I'm not certain whether it's from the story or from the shots. Probably both.

"Oh, that's not a good sign, is it?" He asked quietly.

"Nope. So while my mind stops working for a few seconds—and this wasn't a short kiss, this was a long, passionate goodbye kiss—she pulls away and shoves me in a rocket locker so I can't stop her."

A long pause hung in the conversation, with the only sound being me downing yet another shot.

"So she goes and dies for no reason, and I was the one who convinced her to leave me to do it. How do I not feel guilty about that? The world would be a better place if it was me that had…" I trailed off, not certain if I was able to finish that sentence.

"Hey now, there's never any reason for that line of thinking. I think…you've had enough for one night, kid. You know how to get back from here?"

"No-no-not at a-all."

"Well come on, I've got a bed you can stay the night on. I'm sure the Mrs. won't be too mad if I bring home some drunk again…"

We began the long walk back to wherever we were going. Really, he did all the walking and supported most of my weight as I attempted to walk back as well. To be honest, I don't remember anything that happened after leaving the bar.

As we walked in the front door, his wife was waiting.

"You know, you're actually earlier than usual—oh look, you've brought home another drunk. I swear, this is the first time I've let you go out in a month and this is what you do?"

"Honey, calm down."
"Don't honey calm down me. How old is he? Did you get a kid drunk?"

"He's a Huntsman dear. He was at Beacon…"

She went quiet and her hand covered her mouth softly.

"Oh. Did he know our little girl? Any news?" She asked hopefully.

"I didn't have the heart to interrupt and ask. Kid's had a rough time; he's got a story that'll break your heart if you can get him to tell it again in the morning. Poor soul didn't know how to cope and tried his first drops tonight."

"Well from the looks of it, it was more than just 'drops.'"

"He put a lot down too quickly, for sure. Where can we put him?"

"I think the couch would work…"

"We have a spare bedroom, you know. That works too, doesn't it?"

"That is NOT a 'spare' bedroom. It still is and always will be her room."

"And do you think she would want this poor kid to have to sleep on the couch?"

The wife sighed slowly, thinking it through.

"No, she'd want him to be comfortable. Damn you for getting the better of me again, dear." She joked lightly.

"Anytime, honey." He responded while helping me up the stairs.

The next morning, when I woke up, I didn't have the slightest clue what was going on. I was in a strange bed with the sun shining in on me—and dammit, that light hurt—and had no recollection of what happened the night before. I covered my head with a pillow to block out any light or noise, because for some reason I had a headache that could kill a Beowulf, and tried to think.

Oh. I tried drinking. This must be a hangover.

I focused on the night before, and I could remember talking to someone at the bar. Someone large…a Huntsman? Yes, he was, that's right. Maybe that's where I am; his house?

Yes, that feels familiar. I spent the night talking about…well, about what I was trying to forget. Although, despite the hangover, I do feel somewhat better.

I sat up slowly and noticed there was a bottle of some sports drink sitting on my lap, with a note attached instructing me to drink it. I opened it as I stood up and starting walking around the room, inspecting my surroundings.

Something about this place felt familiar. It felt cozy and warm, like there was something about it that was comforting. I continued walking around the room trying to focus on details to figure out what it was.

And then I saw it. My heart sunk to my gut, and an overwhelming feeling of dread encompassed me. My mind started racing, covering the implications of what I had just uncovered. At the very least, it meant I was about to have a very awkward and sad conversation downstairs.

As it turns out, I know why this room feels familiar. I know whose room it is.

Sitting on the nightstand, there is a picture frame. It's one of those corny but sweet frames with "Family" written in cursive on it with heartwarming quotes around it. In the frame, there is a picture of three people—a family. On the right was the man I was drinking with last night, and on the left is the women I assumed to be his wife. In the middle was their daughter, smiling from ear to ear like there is no place she would rather be than with her parents.

It was their tall, gorgeous, red-haired, badass daughter.

Pyrrha Nikos.