47

As things wound down for the night, and Jaune found himself worrying about seeing the rest of his family, or most of it at least, for the first time in quite a while, he found that his semblance was quite useless on the matter.

You know all sorts of stuff, why don't you know how to handle this? Jaune found himself asking.

I got your dad's name wrong, Second Thoughts deadpanned.

Well- yeah, Jaune mentally stumbled, but that doesn't mean that you don't know any of my sisters! You know me and all my friends and all the secret stuff with Ozpin and them!

I suppose you do have a point there…

Exactly! Jaune eagerly agreed, So help me out here!

You mentioned Saphron, right? As in Saphron Cotta-Arc, wife of Terra Cotta-Arc? They have a… actually I'm not sure if that's happened yet, maybe I shouldn't get into that part…

Yes! See? Jaune ignored the hesitation to share future information, latching onto the bit of hope that he had. If you know one of my sisters then what's to say that you don't know the others?!

Several of the futures I've seen involve you and your friends travelling to Argus and staying with her temporarily. The same cannot be said of the rest of your family.

Come on! Throw me a bone here! Jaune pleaded.

I'm just trying to be practical here! I think it's highly unlikely that I'd be able to help you with the others. I just don't have enough information to work with when it comes to them and your mom. That said though… I do feel kind of bad for ditching you when it comes to your awkward dad talks. If you really want, I could just stay in your head for the rest of the reunions, try to give you advice on the fly. We did that up until I manifested and that turned out pretty well, I think.

…did it? Jaune thought back. I think Ozpin might hate us, Cinder tried to kill us, you put me in a short coma-

I'm doing my best here! Second interrupted.

Jaune continued on regardless. -and that's just the stuff that happened before you manifested. It's gotten worse since then!

Second was silent for a moment. You know, listing out bad things that have happened like they're all my fault isn't a good way to get me in the mood to help you.

Are they not your fault? Jaune asked.

No! Second responded instantly, Er… well… not all of them! Not completely? Ozpin just doesn't like being put on the backfoot and Cinder would have been trying to kill you and your friends regardless. Actually, it seems a bit weird that we still haven't heard anything about her. Or is it normal? I don't know what the time frame is supposed to be between certain events, what was her next appearance…

I'm already worrying about seeing my family again, I don't need to be worrying about that lunatic on top of it! Jaune protested.

Right, sorry! Just thinking out… er… thinking loudly? The phrasing for our communication is always weird…

Jaune sighed. Whatever. But you're helping me with the rest of my family, you got that?!

Yes! I've got that. Interpersonal relationships aren't quite as high on my priority list as the top secret stuff, but I understand that it's important.

Good.

Actually, now that we don't have a lot going on and we're thinking about it… I keep remembering that I want to help your friends out at inopportune moments. Do you mind giving me a physical form for a bit?

Second, it's late and people are probably ready to go to bed. I don't think we have time for you to go through all my friends and give them your cryptic future knowledge.

It's not always cryptic! Second defended, and it doesn't have to be all of them! We could do like, one a day or something. I don't know. But if I don't start while I'm thinking about it, it'll just get kicked down the road again.

Jaune thought it over for a moment, carefully considering all of the trouble Second Thoughts might be able to cause if left to his own devices.

Rude!

Ultimately though, if Second could help his friends, he wanted to give his semblance a chance to. Fine. But no causing problems! Goodwitch is already pissed at us, and my mom will be here to chew me out tomorrow!

Relax! It can't go that badly!

Blake laid in her bunk bed, book in hand as she tried to focus on the words before her rather than the events of the day. Weiss was very strict about having proper "beauty rest", which meant that their room's designated time for lights out didn't have much wiggle room, and if she wanted to finish the rather lengthy chapter she was on before that point, she had to stop thinking about the Arc family.

It was hard to do, though. Even if she was about to reach a plot point she had been looking forward to.

Having her ears as a Faunus trait meant that her hearing was better than the average person's. Not anything too dramatic, mind you, but still enhanced beyond the standard. Because of that fact, she was probably the only one who had heard anything of Jaune's talk with his dad.

She hadn't heard all of it, not with the shouting, clashes of metal, and explosions just a few feet away from her as her friends "trained" Second Thoughts, but she'd heard enough to get a decent picture of the situation.

And it made her think of home.

A knocking on the door drew her out of those thoughts, and made her give up on finishing the chapter that night.

"What sort of buffoon could be knocking on our door at this hour?!" Weiss demanded.

"It's the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come!" A voice warbled from the other end, doing a rather halfhearted attempt at a "ghostly voice".

Blake wasn't sure what they were referencing, but someone talking about things "yet to come" made her conclude that it was Second Thoughts.

Team RWBY looked at each other, considered it for a moment, and proceeded to ignore him.

There was silence for a moment, and then the knocking started again. "Hey! I know you're in there! Open up already!"

"Second?" Ruby blinked, apparently not having pieced it together before that point. "Why didn't you just say so!" Their team leader stood up from her bed and went to open the door.

"Because I forgot that you're all uncultured. Except Blake, who is perhaps too cultured."

A light blush crossed her face. "I know what that means and it's not true!"

As the door opened and Second got a look into the room, his eyes fell to the book in her hands. "Is that so? What's that book about then?"

Blake panicked and threw the book against the wall. Ninjas of Love was a perfectly normal love story! And now she was regretting throwing it…. What page had she been on?

Yang snickered, the traitor, before speaking up. "What's up? Looking to get your butt kicked again?"

Second rolled his eyes. "When I'm sure to experience the joys of Mr. Arc's training tomorrow? I'll pass, thanks."

"Well if you don't go back to your dorm, that's what you'll get!" Weiss berated him.

"Yeah, yeah, past your bedtime, I get it." His eyes fell to her once more. "I just wanted to borrow Blake for a little bit."

Team RWBY shared another look.

That was weird. Second talked to them all, sure, and they had mostly come to accept him as another one of the friend group. It was an eclectic bunch anyway, what was the harm in having a semblance in the mix?

But as far as one on one convos went, well, he tended to stick with Jaune. It made sense, given their situation.

So what could he want with her?

Yang smirked. "Have her back before midnight! Anything you do to her, I'll do to you!"

Second laughed. "Get that from your dad or Qrow?"

"Both."

"You realize it doesn't really work as a threat when it's you saying it instead of an older man, right?"

Not wanting to know where Yang would lead that conversation, Blake vaulted out of bed and pushed Second out into the hall. "Let's get this over with."

Shutting the door behind her, she led him down the hall. She knew her team would be trying to listen in if they stayed near the door, and she could only guess what team JNPR were up to.

"So, what is this about?" She led once she was satisfied with the distance.

"Well, part of me wants to ask you about how to deal with a certain issue, but I'm fairly certain I'll soon be meeting someone whose situation is closer to mine than yours is, so I'm going to hold off on that one for now…"

She wasn't sure how she was meant to interpret that, so she stayed silent, waiting for him to continue.

"So if I'm ignoring my own problems, that leaves yours!"

"...what?"

Second rolled his eyes. "Blake, do you remember the early conversations you guys had about me?"

What did that have to do with anything? "Yes?" she hesitantly responded.

"I seem to recall you worrying that I was going to spread your deepest, darkest secrets or something like that. Which, sure, I guess that's a reasonable worry to have given what you knew at the time. But now we're in a situation where I know your secrets, you know your secrets, and there's no intermediary necessary. We can just talk about stuff that's bothering you."

Blake narrowed her eyes, suspicious of the offer. "But we've already established that there's a lot you don't know. How would I know which secrets you know?"

Second sighed. "I was trying to be nice and let you lead into things in a way you were comfortable with, but if that's how you want to be then fine. Is Jaune's situation with his family hitting a little too close to home, maybe?"

Blake's breath hitched.

"Someone who ran away from home…" Second continued, "Who hasn't contacted their parents, leaving them to stew in their worry about what happened to their kid… I mean, I guess it's a bit different with you since he didn't run off to join a shady organization with her weirdo boyfriend, but-"

Blake shut him up by covering his mouth with her hand. "You- I-" She wasn't sure what to say. She had been thinking about that. Part of her wanted to deny it, to say that it was another detail he had wrong, like Aurelius' name. But she hadn't even talked about it since… well, a long time ago. Far before she left the White Fang.

Things had been… awkward, between the Arc son and father, but it was obvious that they were glad to see each other again.

She hadn't seen her parents in so long. So many times now, she'd thought about them, wondering what would happen if she went back to Menagerie. Would they hate her? She'd left them behind, chasing after a lunatic who they had warned her about over and over. She'd been a member of the organization that had betrayed her parents, using methods they despised as it was twisted further and further from their initial vision. She'd… had she even told them that she loved them before she left? She couldn't remember.

"Now," Second picked up again, "Despite my interesting collection of knowledge, I'm not a mind reader, so correct me if I'm wrong here. But I think it's safe to assume that you'd like to eventually talk to your parents again, right?"

Blake didn't respond, not trusting her mouth.

"And if I had to guess, I'd say that what's keeping you from doing that is some sense of guilt. You took a long time to realize Adam isn't that great of a guy," part of her wanted to interrupt, to defend the man who she'd loved for so long, who on some level, she might still love, "not anymore at least," he added, as if he knew exactly how she'd respond, "and now you've concocted some scenario in your head where your reunion with your parents will end horribly. Maybe they hate you for what you've done or something. Or you feel like you've gone too far, and you don't deserve their love, or… well, that's all I can think of off the top of my head, but you get what I mean. Now, though… you've got someone who can sort of, kind of, tell bits of the future talking about it…"

Part of her dared to grasp at that hope.

But it had been years. This wasn't like with Jaune. He'd only left home a few months ago at most. The last time that she had stepped on the shores of Kuo Kuana…

"Just because Mr. Arc accepted him, doesn't mean the whole family will," she hedged. "And even if they do, it's not the same."

"Nothing is ever going to be exactly the same, Blake," Second argued. "But there are enough similarities that the situations are comparable." He paused for a moment, though she wasn't sure if it was to give her time to process that or to formulate his argument. "Confronting people is hard and scary, especially when you care about them. I mean, look at how long it took Jaune and his dad to talk about their problems! But sometimes it's something you have to do. I think that you'd be a lot happier if you talked to your parents. You don't have to book a flight to Menagerie right this second or anything, but maybe give them a call at some point? Let them know that you didn't die while trying to raid the SDC?"

Part of her knew that he was right. That her parents deserved to hear from her. Even if they hated her, and it just ended up being them telling her not to contact them again…

But part of her was terrified of that. Wanted to run away and never face that confrontation. Like she'd run away from home. Like she'd run from the White Fang. From Adam.

"I can't force you to, Blake," Second prompted when she got too lost in her thoughts. "If you're really dead set against it, then that's your decision to make. I'm just telling you that based on my knowledge, it would end a lot better than you might think. I just want you to consider it."

"I…I'll think about it," she finally settled on. It wasn't a definitive yes or no, but it was like he had said. It was her choice at the end of the day, and not one she wanted to make lightly.

"Good." Second smiled at her, before it morphed into something more like a devious grin. "Now, with that out of the way… anything you want to know? I'm not some genie in a lamp who can only grant three wishes, or a monkey's paw that will turn your desires on their head. My knowledge is vast, if only approximate, and I won't guarantee that if I have the knowledge, I'll share it, but… I'm also not above being a bit petty and sharing embarrassing information."

Blake slowly blinked. "You just got done telling me to talk to the parents I haven't seen in years, and now you want to… gossip or something?"

"What about it?" Second almost pouted. "It's not often that I have freedom like this! It's only natural that I want to have some normal human interactions!"

Normal human interactions? What an odd thing to hear from a semblance talking to a faunus.

Although… it sounded right.

Not everyone saw the faunus as different. It was what she spent so long fighting for, after all.

"Normal human interactions…" Blake smiled. "Sure, why not?"