Chapter 1

But soft! What light through yonder window broke? It was to the east, and shone right into Ruby's face. Why the hell did the sun have to be so bright all the time? Annoyed she turned around in bed, away from the window, trying to get at least a little bit of shadow to be able to grab those extra minutes (or hours) of sleep. But alas, her mind wandered to her wife when she realized the left side of the bed was devoid of warmth.

Her eyes snapped open, head shot up, blurry vision wandering over the bedroom. Her hand felt the blanket as if to make sure Weiss was not just invisible and still besides her. After making sure she made a fool out of herself, she turned around to check the alarm clock on her nightstand. It read 9:43. Hopefully a.m. Ruby chuckled to herself for that thought. Quickly her feet swung out of bed, her muscles awake enough to make the maneuver look at least a little bit graceful. Yawning and stretching herself she made her way out the bedroom and into the bath, to take a long, hot shower.

On the way there, Weiss greeted her from the doorway of the kitchen, a steaming cup of coffee in her hand. "Hey, honey. Slept well?"

"Yeah, the waking up was a bitch, though", she replied, rubbing her eyes.

"As always", Weiss chuckled.

A quick kiss on the lips and Ruby disappeared into the bathroom. Weiss took her seat at the table, listening to the relaxing rushing of the water coming from the shower. The speakers in the ceiling of the kitchen played classical music, creating a welcome and warm atmosphere.

Thirty minutes later Ruby leaves the bath, looking fresh as the new day, rosy cheeks from the heat, hair silky and smooth. When she walked past Weiss to sit opposite her on the wooden table, Weiss could not help but notice the nice smell of roses accompanying her every move.

"I am going to talk with some scientists and medical doctors today about what we talked about the other day", said Weiss, as Ruby stuffed her mouth with eggs and beacon her wife prepared for her.

"Mmmhmm", Ruby mumbled, eggs and beacon sticking to her cheeks. She quickly swallowed, chucked down her hot cocoa, and said: "I hope they can help us."

Two days ago, Ruby and Weiss had Ruby's family over for a visit, and Blake and Yang had their adoptive daughter with them. Weiss spent hours playing with the small fox-faunus, laughing and giggling, showing her her dresses and fashion magazines. It warmed Ruby's heart and she realized that she wanted a child herself. That same evening, they had a talk in bed about it, and Weiss agreed to it immediately. Of course, at first Ruby was interested in adoption, but Weiss said she'd be damned if she was the one in the family to not continue the bloodline. Even if she did not keep the Schnee name, through her veins still ran Schnee blood. So that left only one option: Conceiving a child. Of course, conventional impregnation was out of the question, so Weiss hoped for the scientists and doctors working for her to come up with a solution.

"I'm sure they can. They are the best in the world", the snow-haired woman replied. "What are you gonna do today?"

"I thought I'd visit Yang, see how she and Blake live. I've never been to their place."

"Nor me. Too bad I have to work. You can take it easy the next few weeks."

"Hey, I've been sleeping in the fucking dirt for three months. I'll take any relaxation and comfort I can get", Ruby grinned.

Weiss leaned over and gave her wife a kiss. "I know, and you deserve it. I was just teasing."

With quick, steady and graceful steps fitting her social position she neared her office in the multistory building. As she approached the double door to her spacious room, her secretary stepped up next to her.

"Good morning, Misses Rose, I hope you are having a great morning."

"Thank you, Aki", Weiss replied with a light smile. "Have you contacted my scientists?"

Aki, looking sharp as always in her grey business dress, notebook in hand, wiped a stray strand of her brown hair out of her face and said, as Weiss swung open the huge doors to her office: "Yes, in fact, they already seem to have a solution. They are ready to speak to you whenever you are."

Weiss took a seat in her huge red chair (her favorite color, by the way) and scanned the papers prepared for her on her mahogany desk, patiently waiting for her to read and sign them. "That's great to hear. I will be with them after I finished this paperwork here."

Aki stepped up to her desk. "Your sister called. She wanted to speak to you."

Weiss threw her a puzzled look. That's weird. Winter is supposed to be somewhere in Sanus, dealing with the recent outburst of terrorist attacks there. Apparently, a splinter group of the military of Vacuo disagreed with the country's political viewpoints, and decided to attempt a coup. It failed, but the group found a surprising amount of supporters and sympathizers with the public, ultimately leading to riots and a civil war when protests to free the subjects where left unheard. The civil war lasted a few years, and the military of Vacuo was able to end it rather quickly and with as little bloodshed as possible, but many people were still angry about the government, and this anger lead a handful of people to form a far-left militant organization. For five months now they planted bombs in or near official buildings or homes of politicians, kidnapped and executed some of them and blackmailed the country for millions of lien. What was their name again? Vacuo Public Force? Something like that.

"Did she say what she wanted?"

Aki shook her head. "No. She just told me to ask you to call her back." She ripped a site out of her notebook, a telephone number written on it. Weirdly enough, it was a landline number, not a scroll one, and the dialing code suggests the phone to be here in Atlas.

She grabbed the note from Aki's hands and picked up the phone on her desk, quickly dialing the number. "Thank you, Aki", she said with slight concern in her voice.

Aki nodded and made a beeline to the doors, closing them behind her.