Ruby's eyes leaped between the board and her paper as she struggled to keep up with Oobleck's motor mouth. She was already two lines behind and her hand was cramping worse than her legs the first time she tried sprinting 100 miles. She'd been dreading this lecture all week and it was worse than she imagined. Her ears weren't even processing the information at this point, it was just a jumbled word salad being shoved into her ears by the fistfull.

And then the bell rang.

Ruby's eyes narrowed in horror. She whipped her head up to watch Oobleck take one last hearty swig. "That's all the time we have today class. Assignment 16 is due at the beginning of next class. Don't forget to buy a green book for your Midterm on the 23rd. You're dismissed." A chorus of sighs and gentle groans followed as the class began to pack up.

Ruby released her breath in a long exhausted sigh as the Professor began to erase the board, bottom to top. Ruby couldn't keep up, just thinking about her pain caused her to fall back by ten lines. There was nothing she could do except pack up and hope her study group could help fill in the blanks. She tossed her notebook and her pen into her bag and trudged out of class as quickly as she could.

Her eyes glazing over she couldn't have noticed the girl in the black and yellow scarf before she collided with her. It wasn't ugly, the two just staggered from the hit and jumped to apologies. There was no fanfare; nobody stopped to check on the two, and Ruby couldn't stop either. Once her apologies were dished out she kept moving on towards her next class.

Walking back and forth between classes and training exercises had probably become the worst part of her day. Every student on campus had been working themselves to the bone in preparation of midterms. The team captains were grinding those exposed bones to dust. Every student was tasked with turning in personal team evaluations on top of regular assignments, and leaders were expected to submit dossiers going into extensive detail about the capabilities of their roster along with a "playbook" containing no less than ten practiced combat strategies.

Ruby had been losing sleep, at least that's what the bags under her eyes said. The roar of footsteps filled the halls and numbed the young captain's ears. She gave a small grumble about coffee that even she couldn't hear.

"Ruby? Ruby?" Weiss' tired voice falling flat on her captain's ears. Weiss had been rather patient with her until now, but now Ruby was just pushing her buttons. "Ruby! Stop daydreaming!" She chided, holding her hand in front of Ruby's nose and snapping until she shot up like a spring.

"Huh?!" The short redhead snorted as she whipped her head back, Weiss recoiling at her surprise. Her response was immediately met with a barrage of 'shushes' and 'hushes'. Weiss and Ruby recoiled in shame. The library had been packed tighter than a can of sardines for weeks. The intellectuals at Beacon were always outnumbered by the lunk-heads and that was horribly apparent when exam time came round. Those who struggled with the more technical or detail-oriented aspects flocked to the library for their every issue.

Which meant the regulars were cursed to be mired in with a load of morons.

Weiss gave a sigh as she slouched back in her chair. "Ruby, please focus."

"Sorry Weiss," Ruby muttered, doing her best to avoid another shush barrage. "I'm just a bit distracted today." The sentiment only half true. Naturally she had a lot on her mind, but the sun coming through a nearby window was trying to lure her into the land of dreams. She was being assaulted on all fronts, mental and physical.

"I told you this was a poor place to study." Ren's cool, pithy remark pointed straight at Ruby. Of course Ren had the foresight to predict the library would be crazier than Didney Land, but Ruby chose to overrule his warning.

Weiss gave him a glare but Ruby waved her off by placing a hand on her shoulder. "Ren's right, I thought things would clear up around now. Do you think it'd be better if we just headed back to the room? We still have time."

Blake sighs as she lays down her textbook and rubs at her eyes. "I don't think so. We won't be able to focus if we head back to the room. Plus, there's the Jaune and Nora problem."

Ren shakes his head. "Their study methods are... puzzling."

Ruby sighs as she sinks back in her chair. "It works for them I guess…" The thought trailing off as she remembers the six page paper Port assigned last week. That was just one of several essays due in the next couple weeks. Just the thought of sitting in front of a laptop for hours mindlessly plinking away at the keyboard made her back tense up. The familiar, slight, sharp, pain budding just between her shoulder blades.

Before it could eat anymore of her head Weiss' cool hand gripped Ruby's. "Are you okay?" Weiss' soft voice cutting through the mental quagmire like butter.

Ruby widened her eyes a bit and mustered a fake smile. "Yeah, I think I just need some fresh air." Ruby wasn't an especially convincing liar, but right now she was doing her best to dial back on talking about stress. Everyone was going through the same problem right now, and she wasn't looking for attention. "But umm, are we going to move?"

Blake, who had been flipping through notes up til now, glanced up at her. "Did you have any other suggestions? I'm open to ideas."

"Umm, how about the cafeteria?"

"It's going to be even louder in there." Ren sighed.

"We could try the cafe, the one by the student store, it's probably not too bad in there." Weiss looking between Ren and Blake. The two gave gentle hums that were almost completely masked by the buzz of everyone around them. It only took them a couple moments to consider.

"That works for me." Ren says.

"Agreed, I'll go ahead and see if I can find us a spot. And if we can't get one today we'll try again tomorrow." Blake threw her backpack over her shoulder. "I'll text you if I find a spot."

"Can you get me a frappuccino, even if you can't get a spot?" Weiss asked, holding out a credit card for Blake.

"Sure, talk to you soon." The black haired girl said with a small wave as she walked off.

"Thank you, Blake." Weiss chirped as she went back to packing her belongings.

"Thanks Blake," Ruby chimed as she leaned forward and began packing her things. Honestly, she was hoping there wouldn't be any spots. She wasn't lying when she told Weiss she needed some fresh air. A few moments ago it felt like she was about to start choking on her own tongue. Right now she wanted nothing more than a big breath of air and a solid bit of time where she could just recoup.

That was all she really wanted right now, was a brief moment of rest.

Rising up from her seat with Weiss she looked across the table to Ren. "Are you coming?"

"I'll wait to hear from Blake. Don't wait for me." Ren's eyes never leaving a textbook as he dragged a highlighter across a few lines of text.

"Okay, talk to you soon." Ruby said, trying to muster as much cheer as she could before following Weiss. Passing packed tables and working their way past the lines at the front reception desk they made it out into one of Beacon's many halls. The stained glass window panes filling in the walls certainly made the library's approach memorable.

"Ren was certainly sour today." Weiss said, glancing over at Ruby.

"You think? I thought he was just kind of stressed." Ruby's heart wasn't really in the right place for gossip, but once Weiss got going it was hard to shake her from the topic.

"Do you think it's about… you know?"

"You mean Jaune and Nora?"

"Shhh! Don't say it so loud!" Weiss throwing Ruby a look that said 'I'm taking this way too seriously'. Or at least that was Ruby's interpretation. With a heavy sigh Weiss shook her head. "I just can't believe it."

"I don't know, I think it's okay. They're just spending some time together." Ruby shrugged.

"They're spending too much time together lately. Something's going on between those two."

Ruby gave a heavy sigh. "Maybe you're reading into it too much. I don't even think Nora likes Jaune like that." She really didn't feel like dealing with Juniper drama right now. She had to get back to work on her dossier soon. Whatever fictional love triangle Weiss was on about was none of her business.

"Hmm, you might be right." Weiss mumbled, a huge smirk growing across her face. "I think Nora could do better than Barf boy."

Ruby managed to fake another smile as she trudged alongside Weiss. That collision from earlier had actually bruised her shin and right now she was too preoccupied to work on healing it. The fifteen year old had just remembered another assignment she was woefully unprepared for.

Biting the inside of her cheek she held back another sigh.

Hey y'all, thanks for reading. I've had this story idea in mind for quite a while and it's well past time I release it.

I wanna give a huge thank you to Winter1112 for helping me workshop the concept and for assisting me with editing and proofreading. Check out their stuff. If you can't find it here check over on AO3. Well, I hope you enjoyed and do stick around for future updates.

Until next time, peace out.

-CS