Partners Limitless

Sometimes it's so easy to forget.

Ever since the Fall of Beacon, Ruby has been steadily forgetting something. She forgets more when nightmares of Pyrrha and Penny plague her at night. She forgets more when they reach massacred villages too late at day. She forgets more when Uncle Qrow takes a hit for her and almost dies.

She keeps forgetting something more and more each day, all the while she religiously remembers each passing horror.

And during a Grimm attack, she remembers everything except the one thing that truly matters.

"Got them! Now who's next?" She taunts after slaying another Manticore Grimm. She sets her sights on what's in front of her, never crossing her mind to even look back.

Not that she needed to.

"Woah!" She feels an impact too close for comfort and sees a Grimm tumble over ice, neither of which existed in the past moments as far as she was aware of. It only shows just how much she isn't aware of her surroundings.

So when she finally checks behind, she finds the one person who always has her back.

"Thank me later!" Her partner teases as she dashes right by her, all smug and casual over the fact that she just saved her from a world of hurting.

That's when she finally remembers.

She remembers that she's forgotten what it's like to have your partner watching your back.

Back in their sleeping compartment, Weiss was greeted by an all too achingly familiar sight.

A room too crammed for four people. When she blinks, she almost sees one large window instead of three, a red curtain slashed and restitched draped along it. Below that, she could picture the two tiered bookshelf filled with Blake's books rather than the emptiness that it actually was. She scans the walls where she finds Yang's Achieve Men poster and her own Forever Fall painting if she blinks long enough.

Then her eyes finally fall on the two sets of bunk beds. She doesn't even have to blink to imagine it. She's had the image burned behind her retinas, pictured it so many times that she knows she's memorized every minute detail there is. She's seen it too many times as she laid awake in her much too large and much too lonely bed in Atlas, wishing she was somewhere else.

Somewhere with precarious ropes barely lifting a makeshift canopy bed that filled most of her nights with dread at the slightest movement from Ruby from above her. And yet ironically, it is those same dreadful nights that she now recalls with fondness.

It's a fleeting vision just like those memories of carefree days.

"Hey, Weiss!" She hears her partner call for her and she doesn't take for granted the great comfort that comes in the knowledge that this is not just her recalling a memory.

"Yes, Ruby—" She turns but only halfway.

Poke.

She stops when she feels a finger poking her cheek and she thinks she hears the grin before she even sees it.

"Turn that frown upside down!" Ruby gives her not the first of the many bright smiles she never seems to run out of.

So naturally, Weiss scowls.

"Uhh, you do know what upside down looks like, right?" Not to be discouraged, Ruby pokes harder at her cheek.

She doesn't remember when the change happened but there was a time that she would have thrown a fit over her partner's antics. That just might be the only time she doesn't want to revisit before the Fall of Beacon. Now she's learned to play along or at least as much as years of instilled dignity allows her to.

"Is this really necessary?"

More poking.

"Yup."

Even more poking.

"It's annoying."

"Pfft! Your frown is annoying."

Weiss tries to swat the hand but she keeps mistiming it.

"Will you stop that!" She hisses when she narrowly misses the hand again.

"Nope!" To emphasize her point, she continues her prodding, maybe even with more enthusiasm. "I'm trying to find the reset button for your face!"

That brings out a disbelieving eye roll. "And how is pressing the same spot working out for you?"

"I dunno, you tell me~" She replies all too cheekily.

This time Ruby pokes the corner of her lips. It's only then that Weiss realizes that she just might have been smiling, even if only for a fraction.

Still, that does not excuse the abuse that her face has gone through.

"You will pay for that," Weiss threatens and even she can hear just how empty her threat is when she can't stop the pull of her lips.

Then Ruby's face lights up.

Uh oh. Weiss remembers that face all too well. It's good to know that some things never change. That's her leader's scheming face which could range from ridiculous to dangerously ridiculous ideas.

And perhaps the strangest thing of all is that Weiss is more than willing to entertain either.

"Only if you catch me!" Ruby suddenly declares.

Weiss blinks, surprised. "What?"

Then she feels the lightest prodding on her forehead.

"Tag! You're it!" Her leader's grin is smug and challenging. But more importantly, she's already running.

She's halfway through the door when Weiss realizes the game that she's been roped into playing.

And Weiss only plays to win.

"Don't think you can get away that easily!" She summons a black glyph on Ruby's next step, the sudden slowing down of her movement, breaking her momentum and tripping her face first on the floor.

"Hey! No fair!" She complains with a pout. She may have matured during the months apart but she looks every bit childish as she sulks. "That's cheating and you know it! You don't see me using my semblance!"

"Alright then. No semblance." Weiss concedes as she slowly approaches her fallen friend. She extends her hand as if in offering. "Starting... now!"

Only to flick her on the forehead.

She's already running towards the next train car when she hears Ruby's shout, "Oh, it is on! You are so going to be it!"

"Only if you catch me!" She shouts back with a laugh.

When she runs away from Ruby, it feels nothing like when she ran away from Atlas, away from her abusive father, away from isolation. The difference between the two is that this is Ruby she's running away from. That she isn't really running away. With Ruby, she's just running. Running and free to reach places she couldn't cross alone.

With her partner watching her back, there's nowhere she wouldn't go.

"Go!" Ruby shouts as she ushers everyone else to take cover for the incoming tunnel.

She races towards the end of the train car she's standing on, Team JNR already ahead of her. Behind her is the rest of Team RWBY and hot on their backs were the Grimm, chasing them just as desperately as they were running away from them. For all her semblance of speed, she doesn't rush to get inside first. Instead she lets herself lag behind as she hears her heartbeat in her ears along with her panicked thoughts.

She may have forgotten what it's like to have someone watch your back but not anymore.

"Ah!" A blast, a shout, and then comes the fallout.

So when she hears that all too familiar cry, this time Ruby doesn't forget.

An almost fall. An arm caught. A partner saved.

"Thank me later!" This time it's Ruby's turn to return Weiss the favor if one could call it that. But it's not a favor, never with them. It's just them having each other's backs. Something natural yet worked for at the same time.

More importantly, it's something that the two of them have dearly missed.

And as they spiral together into safety, there is no safer place than where they are in now— in each other's arms.

A/N: There were so many good moments in the first episode! A part of me regrets not tackling the "Don't worry, Weiss! Team RWBY won't leave you for a second!" moment but maybe another chapter I will. There's also the unspoken conversations these two had when they looked at each other during that bee moment, huh wonder what they were thinking. But I thought it was a good start to write about the iconic first scene dialogue and the adorable chase scene in the intro :)

If you enjoyed this one then may I offer you my other work, Pancakes and Toothpaste? It's also whiterose (with a dash of renora). The only reason that it's not added here is that I'm keeping this series strictly one chapter per episode.

So yeah, check that out! I promise it's as fluffy as pancakes (and as fresh as toothpaste?)!