Author's Note: I know I'm not the first person to do this, but I've decided to put my own spin on all that Freezerburn shipping fuel in Volume 5.

Part of this story overlaps with a scene from the actual show. I have deliberately not re-watched that bit of the Volume so that I don't just regurgitate what you've all already seen. (You have seen Volume 5 by now, right?) I guess what I'm saying is to expect things to be different from how they played out in actual RWBY.

I feel I should mention something ahead of time. Love triangles aren't really my thing. I try to keep any hint of them out of my stories, especially considering how, uh, passionate people get over their favorite pairings. Due to the nature of Volume 5, there is a suggestion of a triangle-like relationship in this fic, so let me reiterate that this is a Freezerburn story and nothing else.

This story was written just after Volume 5 ended.

Chapter 1: The Other Side

Weiss could scarcely believe it, but she'd finally arrived in Mistral. It hadn't been the first journey she'd taken to the kingdom or even its capital, but it had been decidedly more trying than her last. Instead of an uneventful flight on a Schnee Dust Company airship, she'd been a runaway, a stowaway, and a captive. Given the choice, Weiss would have preferred fewer bandits and fewer fiery crashes in her travels. Fortunately, her situation had improved a great deal since her reunion with Yang and Ruby.

Weiss still wasn't sure how Ruby and her uncle had secured the use of a house in Mistral's prestigious upper ward, especially one so large. Ruby had never even been to Mistral before, and Qrow didn't exactly strike Weiss as the type to have the necessary money or social connections. But however Ruby and Qrow had come by the house, one thing was for certain; the view couldn't be beat. Right now Weiss was looking out of a hallway window. Pristine, white buildings decorated the mountainside below her, offset beautifully by a backdrop of misty, wooded hills. The sight was breathtaking, but unfortunately for Weiss, it was doing very little to distract her from her troubles.

Weiss had endured a great deal of trauma since Beacon's fall. However, yesterday had gone a long way toward soothing her hurt. She wasn't usually one to indulge in nostalgia—she had enough things she wanted to accomplish with her life that she just didn't have the time—but a little nostalgia had turned out to be exactly what she'd needed. She never would have guessed that good food and lively conversation with her friends would be enough to make her feel so much more at ease. It had almost been like she'd stepped back in time and found herself at Beacon again.

In many ways, yesterday had been even better for Weiss than her time at Beacon, especially her first semester there. She hadn't felt the need to prove herself to be Ruby's superior. She hadn't butted heads with Yang over every little thing. And there hadn't been the constant, unrelenting pressure to measure up as the Schnee heiress. Weiss had been among her peers, welcome and accepted. Even Jaune's presence had been tolerable.

However, despite all the comfort that Weiss had found in Mistral, something had been bothering her ever since she'd unexpectedly met up with Yang again. There hadn't been time to worry about it when she and Yang had been trapped in a den of bloodthirsty bandits, and the afternoon following their escape to safety had been full of welcome distractions. But now that Weiss was alone, she couldn't stop thinking about what had happened after she'd broken free of that cage and stood by Yang's side again. It wasn't the danger or the serendipity of the moment that was preying on her mind; it was that she, Weiss Schnee, had hugged Yang.

As a rule, Weiss didn't enjoy hugs or being touched in general. And maybe she wouldn't have been so concerned if Yang had been the one to hug her. But Yang hadn't been. The incident had been all Weiss's own doing. Weiss tried to tell herself that it had just been a byproduct of the rush of emotions she'd felt after seeing a friendly face for the first time in months, but that didn't ring true. She'd been overjoyed to see Ruby again as well, but she'd hardly felt compelled to throw her arms around her, certainly not like with Yang.

Perhaps what baffled Weiss the most was that she'd delighted in the hug far more than she cared to admit. Just thinking about it now made her feel warm inside. She actually wanted to experience hugging Yang again. It was all very disconcerting. There were unquestionably people she cared about just as much as Yang, but she had no desire to express her fondness for them with any sort of physical gesture. Why should Yang be so special?

Weiss turned away from the window and glanced to her side. A few feet down the hallway from where she was standing was an unremarkable wooden door. The door led to one of the house's many guest rooms. Specifically, it led to Yang's guest room, and Weiss knew that Yang was inside. She'd seen her go in not long after her outburst this morning in the courtyard.

Weiss wanted to open the door up and walk through it, but she found herself rooted to the spot. She'd recently escaped her father, one of the most powerful men on Remnant. She'd literally crossed oceans and mountains. Yet here she was, stopped in her tracks by a simple door that didn't even have the decency to be locked. She couldn't think of anything more ridiculous.

Weiss stood there, exasperated with herself. Unfortunately, all the exasperation in the world wouldn't make the door magically swing open. Weiss knew she should just turn around and leave. If she couldn't muster up the courage to go and face Yang, there was no point to standing around the hallway looking foolish. But Weiss didn't leave. She couldn't. She had to know what that hug yesterday had meant.

Back when Weiss had first met Yang, she'd been jealous of Yang's good looks. It wasn't a sentiment that she'd ever expressed out loud, mostly on account of how petty it would've made her sound, but her feelings on the matter had been undeniable. Her jealousy had only grown when she and Yang had started living in the same dorm room together. Weiss had assumed that Yang's attractiveness was the result of hours spent primping and preening, but nothing could've been further from the truth. Yang never wore makeup. She didn't seem to have the slightest idea what a proper skin care regimen was. And although she clearly had excellent fashion sense, she rarely put any thought into what she wore from day to day. Nevertheless, from the moment Yang jumped out of bed in the morning until the moment she climbed back into it at night, she was effortlessly beautiful. The only bit of her appearance she seemed to care about at all was her wondrous mane of hair. The number of hair care products she used was simply staggering.

Things had only gotten worse as Weiss had come to know Yang better. Yang's cheerful personality, her infectious optimism, and her kind heart practically made her glow with an angelic light in Weiss's eyes. When Yang smiled, she lit up the room. When she laughed, she warmed the air. And when she fought, she fought with such confidence and passion that it sometimes made it difficult for Weiss to focus on anything else.

It hadn't been until well into Team RWBY's second semester that things had truly gotten out of hand. When Weiss and Yang had started training together for the doubles round of the Vytal Festival Tournament, Weiss had caught herself sneaking peeks at Yang—only when she was certain that Yang wasn't looking of course. Her voyeuristic desires had made her very uncomfortable, but she hadn't been able to stop herself. Back then she hadn't bothered to consider why she'd felt the need to leer at Yang, but she was certainly considering it now. She didn't like the conclusions she was drawing at all.

Weiss's jaw clenched. Unfortunately, the truth was painfully obvious. She was attracted to Yang. There was no use in denying it. She'd been attracted to Yang for some time now. And as much as Weiss hated platitudes, it seemed that Yang's absence had indeed made her heart grow fonder. Weiss had never truly admitted to herself how she felt because when she'd been the Schnee heiress that kind of thinking hadn't been allowed. But she was no longer an heiress. She might not even be a Schnee anymore, at least not in her family's eyes. She was free to think and feel as she wished. However, knowing how she felt and knowing how to act on those feelings were two very different things. Weiss didn't have the faintest clue as to what she should do with her strange urges. Maybe the correct course of action for her was to simply do nothing, but then again maybe it wasn't.

"Hey, Weiss!" a voice suddenly said from behind.

Weiss let out an undignified squeak as she jumped in alarm. She'd been so lost in thought that she hadn't heard anyone approaching. She spun around and saw Ruby's smiling face.

"Ruby! Don't sneak up on me like that!" Weiss exclaimed.

"Sorry!" Ruby said, holding up her hands apologetically. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's alright," Weiss said.

"What are you doing out here all by yourself?" Ruby asked.

Weiss's eyes darted to Yang's door for just a split second. "I was…thinking," she said.

"What about?" Ruby asked.

Weiss sighed internally. Of course Ruby would ask her that. Weiss's first instinct was to brush the whole thing off, but the more she thought about it the more she began to wonder if that was really the best thing for her to do. She doubted that she'd be able to sort through her feelings entirely on her own, but she also wasn't sure that she was ready to discuss them, even with Ruby.

"Weiss?" Ruby asked.

Weiss realized that she needed to say something to Ruby, and Ruby was, at the very least, a sympathetic ear.

"I was wondering…" Weiss said, picking her words very carefully. She wasn't exactly eager to get into the specifics of her situation. "Is there anyone that you…like?"

"Well of course there is!" Ruby said. "I like you. And Yang. And all our other friends too!"

"No, Ruby," Weiss said, shaking her head. "I meant is there someone that you like as more than a friend."

"You mean someone I…like-like?" Ruby asked, scratching her head.

Weiss sighed, out loud this time. "That's one way to phrase it, I suppose," she said.

Ruby looked lost in thought for a moment. Then she said, "I don't think so. Yang always said it was something that would happen to me someday, but I'm sixteen now and…well, I guess I'm not really into boys. At least not in that way."

"I'm not sure I am either," Weiss mumbled to herself. As the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, she'd been subjected to an endless procession of would-be suitors over the years. None of them had ever held her interest. She'd always assumed that it had been because they'd all been dull, pretentious, insufferable, or all three. But now she wasn't so sure.

Ruby said, "Wait. If you're not into boys, does that mean you're into girls?"

Weiss's heart stopped in her chest when she realized not only what she'd just said, but that Ruby had heard her. "I…I…!" she sputtered in a panic. "I could ask you the same question!"

"Nope," Ruby said with a shrug. "I'm not really into anyone."

"You're not?" Weiss asked. She hadn't been expecting that kind of answer at all.

"Nope," Ruby repeated. "That's okay, isn't it?"

"Of course it's okay," Weiss said. "I'm just surprised."

"So what about you?" Ruby asked.

Weiss opened her mouth, but then she closed it again. She didn't know how to answer Ruby's question at all. She didn't even know what she wanted the answer to be. Eventually, she said, "I'm not sure."

"You're not sure?" Ruby asked. "Isn't that something you're supposed to know by now?"

"You would think so," Weiss said exasperatedly.

An excited look flashed across Ruby's face. "We should figure it out then!" she said.

"That's really not necessary," Weiss said.

"I've got it!" Ruby said, completely ignoring Weiss. "We can ask Yang!"

"What?! No!" Weiss shouted, louder than she'd intended.

"Well we don't have to, I guess," Ruby said, obviously taken aback by Weiss's flustered response.

"I'm sorry," Weiss said. "I just wouldn't feel comfortable talking to Yang about this."

"Okay," Ruby said.

"Out of curiosity," Weiss said. "Why Yang?"

"Because Yang likes boys and girls," Ruby said.

"She does!?" Weiss asked. She'd honestly had no idea. A jolt of excitement involuntarily shot through her when she realized that she and Yang might be compatible, so to speak. Somehow, that made her feel even more conflicted.

Ruby said, "If you don't want to talk to Yang, we could go talk to Uncle Qrow. He's always telling stories about going on dates with girls. Although he never seems to finish them for some reason."

"Ruby…" Weiss said, shaking her head. "It's fine. Really. I appreciate you trying to help me, but we have more important things to worry about right now."

"Alright," Ruby said. "But you know I'm here for you. We all are."

"I know," Weiss said. "Thank you."

"Well then I'm going to go check on Yang," Ruby said. "I'm kind of worried about her."

Weiss looked over at Yang's door yet again. Ruby did have a good point. Yang's outburst about Blake this morning had been concerning. While Weiss still didn't always understand Blake, she had come to respect her. However, finding that respect had taken her time. Yang, on the other hand, had been best friends with Blake from almost the moment they'd become partners. Yang's vitriolic comments had been extremely uncharacteristic of her.

Weiss suddenly realized how self-centered she was being. Instead of wasting the morning worrying about her feelings, she should have been worrying about Yang's. Yang had given her a great deal of comfort simply by being there for her yesterday, and this was an opportunity to pay her back.

"Ruby," Weiss said. "Would it be okay if I checked on Yang first? By myself?"

"Sure," Ruby said. "But only if you tell me right away if she's not doing alright."

"I will," Weiss said. "Thank you, Ruby."

"I guess I'll go see how everyone else is doing then," Ruby said. "Jaune, Ren, and Nora are probably up by now."

"I'm certain they are," Weiss said.

Ruby left, and Weiss found herself alone once more. She turned to Yang's door. It was time for her to stop cowering like a frightened child. She straightened herself up, firmly grasped the doorknob, and let herself into Yang's room.

When Weiss passed through the door, the first thing her eyes fell on was Yang. Yang was lying on one of the room's two beds. Her arms were tucked underneath her head, and she was gazing up at the ceiling. The sun was shining in through the windows, bathing Yang with its light. Weiss's heart fluttered in her chest. She forgot for a moment that she was there to comfort Yang, not admire her. Yang was just so beautiful to her. Maybe she really wasn't attracted to men. Maybe she was. Maybe Yang was an exception to the rule. Weiss didn't know, and right now it didn't matter.

Weiss could have stood there looking at Yang for hours, but when she noticed that Yang was missing her ever-present smile, her heart sank. Despite the cheerful front that Yang had put up yesterday, Weiss could see now just how much she was still hurting inside.

Weiss shut the door behind her and quietly walked over to the room's other bed. She sat down on it and folded her hands in her lap. She desperately wanted to comfort Yang, but she had no idea how to even start.

Yang didn't acknowledge Weiss's presence. Her eyes continued to stare listlessly upward.

A long moment passed, but eventually Yang said, "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay," Weiss said.

"Okay?" Yang asked, finally looking at Weiss. "What does that mean?"

"It means that we don't have to talk about anything you don't want to talk about," Weiss said.

"Alright. Good," Yang said.

Weiss could see tumultuous thoughts swirling about in Yang's eyes. She wanted to tell Yang that everything would be alright, but the words got jumbled up inside of her, so she remained silent.

The silence dragged on until it threatened to grow awkward. Weiss desperately tried to think of something cheerful to talk about that might take Yang's mind off of things. Eventually, she said, "I've been thinking about you a lot since…since we all left Vale."

"Oh yeah?" Yang asked.

"Yes," Weiss said. "I would have called, but the CCT Network is still down."

"Yeah," Yang said.

"You look…good," Weiss said. Her growing nervousness was starting to slip into her voice.

"Thanks," Yang said absently.

Weiss silently berated herself. She wasn't sure if she was attempting to comfort Yang or to flirt with her. Either way, she was failing at both. Maybe she should have just kept her mouth shut after all.

Yang suddenly pulled her prosthetic arm out from behind her head. She held it outstretched above her and stared at it like an infant noticing her own hands for the first time. Weiss was honestly still surprised every time she saw Yang's new artificial limb. Yang wore it so well that it was easy for Weiss to forget that it was there. She had no idea how Yang had acquired such an expensive piece of technology, but she was glad that she had. For someone like Yang, going through life with only one arm would have been a cruel fate.

Weiss was impressed by how quickly Yang had recovered from the trauma of losing a limb, at least on the surface. When she was her usual cheerful self, like she had been yesterday, it was as if nothing had happened. In a strange way Weiss even felt that Yang's new prosthetic suited her. She certainly wouldn't have wished for Yang to suffer such an injury, but it made Yang look even more like the stalwart huntress she'd always been destined to become.

Yang lowered her arm. Then she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She was facing Weiss now, but her eyes were cast down to the floor. "I'm sorry about what my mom did to you," she said.

"You don't need to apologize for that," Weiss said. "You had nothing to do with it."

"If I'd known, I'd have come and saved you," Yang said.

A blush colored Weiss's cheeks. She hoped that Yang didn't notice. She'd never imagined herself as a damsel in distress—the very idea of it ran contrary to her principles—but the thought of Yang swooping in and plucking her out of danger was more than a little intriguing.

Weiss reached out with the intent of touching Yang's shoulder, but she quickly pulled her hand back. "I know you would have saved me, Yang," she said. "We're teammates. We rely on each other."

"Yeah. Teammates," Yang said dejectedly.

Yang's fists clenched together, and her right hand began to tremble. The sight worried Weiss. Before she could think better of it, she shifted over to the other bed and sat right beside Yang. Then she put her arm around Yang's shoulders. It was the second time in as many days that she'd been the one to initiate a hug.

"It's alright, Yang," Weiss said soothingly.

Tears began gathering in the corners of Yang's eyes. "She just left us," Yang whispered.

"She?" Weiss asked. "Do you mean…Blake?"

"Yeah," Yang said. "Blake."

Weiss was a bit perplexed. She wasn't sure how Blake had suddenly come into this conversation. She said, "I'm sure Blake will come seek us out if she needs us."

"Well maybe I need her!" Yang blurted out.

Something in Yang's tone of voice struck a chord with Weiss. An ugly feeling shot through her, and it took her a moment to figure out why. The way Yang was talking it almost sounded like she had feelings for Blake.

"Maybe I…maybe…" Yang said with quivering lips. Then she buried her head in her hands and started sobbing uncontrollably.

Weiss had never seen Yang act so vulnerable before. Her heart ached at the sight. She hugged Yang even tighter and rocked her back and forth.

"It's okay. It's okay," Weiss whispered, but she wasn't feeling any more okay than Yang was. She understood now what a fool she'd been. While she'd been struggling with her feelings for Yang, she'd just assumed that Yang would automatically return said feelings. However, that clearly wasn't the case. Weiss knew it wasn't fair of her to be resentful, but right now she desperately wanted Yang to need her as badly as she so obviously needed Blake.

Weiss swallowed her hope and did her best to push her own issues aside. She refused, she absolutely refused, to fail in her duty as Yang's friend. The truth was that Yang did need her right now, even if it wasn't in the way she might have wanted.

Weiss let Yang cry her eyes out. She hadn't forgotten her promise to Ruby, and she would go and find her. But that could wait until after Yang had calmed down.

Suddenly, Yang's arms reached out and wrapped themselves around Weiss. Weiss sucked in a breath. To be held by Yang, even in these circumstances, was more than she could have asked for. A bitter-sweet feeling rose up inside of her, and she savored it for all it was worth.

Author's Note: Weiss really has it bad for Yang. I told her to tone down her gushing a little bit, but she didn't listen to me. She never listens to me.

So this was supposed to be a shot one when I first sat down to write it, but somehow it turned into a two chapter story. (You didn't really think I'd let things end on such a sad note, did you?) I don't seem to be capable of writing anything that's short these days, but I guess I shouldn't complain about that too much.

For those of you who are new around here, I like writing Ruby as an ace, as demonstrated here. There's no particular reason for it other than I like it and it seems to fit her character.

Oh, and Ruby saying she's sixteen finally isn't me aging up the characters. Back in Volume 4 Yang mentioned that she's an adult now. In my mind that means everyone gets one year added on to their age. It works out that way too if you stop and analyze the show's timeline. Which I have. Because I don't have anything better to do apparently.

As always, I welcome constructive criticism. Please feel free to leave a review. And if you like what you've read, taking the time to favorite and/or follow really helps me out. You can also find me on tumblr (electronicyarn) if you want to send me a message or be notified of updates.