CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS FOR VOLUME 6, CHAPTER 9. CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Cover Image: i (dot) pinimg (dot) com / originals / f6 / 6c / 12 / f66c122c416c20f33e5db9c52a40ab96 (dot) jpg. All credit to the original artist

Everyone has their favourite season.

For some, the Springtime is the perfect time of the year. The days are getting longer, the weather is getting warmer and the world feels like it's waking up again. The vibrant colours of the blossoms and flowers in Spring certainly help make everything pleasant as well.

Of course, there are those who say that Spring is also good because that's when the new academic starts again - particularly those like Weiss Schnee, or parents with kids whose boredom had peaked little over a week prior and, as a result, were walking on eggshells to keep them entertained or face the wrath of a child for the remaining days before school.

There were those who believed that the season before was far better though. What could be better than sitting down on a cold Winter's night with a cup of hot chocolate in hand with a roaring fire burning in front of you, a family pet or a loved on at your side or a good book in your hand, the world outside slowly getting covered in a beautiful snow blanket.

There are other reasons too. Nondescript Winter Holiday came around, and all the festivities, food, lights and cheer that came with it. The academies finished for the year then too, and students and teachers alike could return home to take a break from everything, coming back in the New Year fresh and new.

But why wrap up warm when you can have the warm weather? The Summer lovers weren't wrong - so many hours in the day you almost don't know what to do with them all, the barbeques, the beaches, the happiness of just having sunny day after sunny day.

There was also the cherry atop the Summertime cake of having everyone walking around in outfits that were just about legally covering what they needed to. Guys and girls with the confidence the summer brings to strut in what was basically underwear and everyone else would seldom bat an eyelid was such a brilliant time of year.

And then there was the Fall.

Many people enjoyed the Fall because of certain traditions, like Halloween. Ruby Rose enjoyed the Fall because her birthday fell on Halloween - a fact she constantly reminded people on the days leading up to it, and on the day of. Certain spices became more widely used, and they were almost synonymous with the time of year now.

Sadly, there were things not so great about Fall.

As Teams RWBY and ORNJ, Maria and Qrow were finding out.

The Cotta-Arc household was woken early not by any alarm they'd set, but by loud crying from downstairs. Such is to be expected from a family with a baby.

But when even Adrian was plugging his sweet little ears at the crying, you know it's bad.

"Urgh," Yang groaned as the sound roused her from her slumber, removing her partner's hair from her mouth so as to voice her disdain properly. "Again with this shit?"

"Yang, mind your language!" Weiss grumbled somewhat coherently as she, too, was stirred awake by the bawling. "Adrian is within earshot, and I'm sure Saphron and Terra would like their son to not be cursing as soon as he can talk."

"Over that racket? Hardly."

"Ccnnt yrrslvs lrrky-"

"Nope, gotta hear you properly or not at all," Yang decided, removing the pillow from Blake's face so that she could be heard. The Faunus didn't appreciate that.

"I said, count yourselves lucky. You only have one set of ears. I have two, and the second pair is very sensitive to loud noises." Yang flinched at that, she had momentarily forgotten about that - all the better though, it meant Blake wasn't defined by her Faunus traits in her eyes. But that was for another discussion.

Everyone else, now awake from the girl's collective annoyance at the crying, stared dreary eyed at the sound. It was a constant for the past few days, and they wanted to believe it was a one off thing. It seemed that they were very wrong. This made sleeping a huge problem.

"Right, if nobody else is going to do it," Weiss resolved as she swung out of bed, "then I guess I'll go and shut him up." No one wanted her to do it, but similarly no one wanted to get out of bed to stop her. Even Terra and Saphron stared from the doorway of their bedroom as the fair haired Atlesian stormed past them.

It was fortunate then that Ren and Nora were standing guard outside the room in question, mugs of what must have been strong coffee in hand.

"Get out of my way you two. Now." Used to things going her way instantaneously back in Atlas years ago, the unfazed and unmoving Renora couple irked Weiss. "I said-"

"Heard you the first time, Ice Queen," the usually chipper ginger snapped back. And unlike back at the Qrow's Nest in Mistral (Ruby's nickname for that safehouse, no one else's), Nora meant to cause a level of offense when using that name. Even the minimal amount of sleep Team RNJR got on their travels was more than what she and her partner had been getting these past nights, and lack of sleep greatly lowered Nora's tolerance for any kind of irritable comment levelled her way, even from a friend. "It not like you have to sleep with him, or anything. It's fine."

The sarcasm pushed Weiss' irritation to the boiling point, to the mere moments before she exploded with rage. That was, until she felt her emotions drain out of her, like a sink with the plug opened and all the negativity draining out of her in an instant. Glancing up, ice blue eyes dulled down from her current lack of feelings gazed at Ren, the hand not holding the mug of coffee resting against the wall, his semblance making its way through the structure of the building and to Weiss, defusing that bomb before it went off.

"Thank you, Ren," Saphron called down the hallway. The young man from Anima simply did a small bow in appreciation of his work.

"Is there nothing you can do Ren?" Ruby asked as she shuffled her way to her partner's side as Ren released her from his semblance, her emotions coming back and Ruby wanting Weiss to come back in a comfortable place, rather than going back to where she was a minute ago. "You can mute everyone else. Why not Jaune? Why not now?"

Sighing, his response was, "this is not easy."

"WAAAAHHAAAHAAAYYY?!" came a particularly loud and powerful sob.

"Jaune's mind is just too all over the place for me to do this. I know I did it in my home village against the Grimm, but was not in this much emotional pain. And he did not have his semblance - his emotions can run harder as well as others' semblances, he just doesn't really know it."

"How can you tell?" Blake asked from afar, large bundles of cotton wool and a pair of Faunus-friendly earmuffs over her animal appendages.

"Jaune can be emotional at times," Nora said, less angry and less confrontational, thusly more amicable, than before Ren took over talking. "But he's never been this bad."

"At this point, it's all we can suggest."

"Saphron, have you ever seen Jaune this bad?"

"Not while I was living at home, no," she answered, walking towards the door her baby brother was behind, crying his eyes out. "I don't even know what it's even over."

The crying through the door continued, everyone just staring at the sound through plaster, brick and wood.

"Maybe he could go back to Vale. Get away from all this?"

"Really?" Yang defended. "Back to a Kingdom with a giant, Wyvern shaped Grimm magnet atop Beacon and the events of that still lingering arou-" suddenly, she paused, her mind finally having turned all the gears and piecing it all together.

"What?"

"I think I know why Jaune's so upset." Everyone turned to Yang expectedly. The pressure to get this right built, especially in front of his sister, who could probably kill her if she wanted too should the information displease her.

Yang knew - as did Weiss to a lesser extent - that big sister powers were pretty powerful when they needed to be.

"What time of year is it?"

It clicked for everyone else as well. Guilt flooded their systems as they backed away, leaving the young man alone in his grief.

"But don't you think this is still a little… dramatic?" Blake asked. Nora simply gazed at the ex-White Fang member incredulously, citing the pot and the kettle when it came to judging people being dramatic over small things.

Surely he wasn't that bad.

"WHYYY DO YOU HATE ME?!" Jaune cried out to the unlistening Gods of this world, staring out at a sea of amber leaves on the trees, all of them reminding him of Pyrrha Nikos, the woman whom he loved, and the woman he lost.

This was why Jaune disliked the Fall. Every leaf drifting on the wind reminded him of his partner, of the brief time they spent 'together-together', of a love he lost the day he finally opened his eyes and saw the girl who'd spent the better half of a year trying to get him to notice her.

Every. Single. Leaf.

Okay, so maybe he was being slightly dramatic…

Once again, another Tumblr inspiration. This time, from user 'biggreenneatbox' (and I got the post this time. Yay!) who said:

"One Leaf That's all it takes. ONE GOD DAMNED LEAF, and we're all crying and blubbering messes! Dammit Rooster Teeth."

And this time, I can knock this out in a single sitting as opposed to the last one where I needed to wait a week to get the transcript for the episode because I couldn't always access it when I was writing. Not this time :D

As always, feedback - good or bad - is most appreciated

Until next time,
FeugoFox42 :)