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“Who is Jaune now?”
That question taunted and haunted him every night since he arrived at Vacuo.
People knew it wasn’t easy for him, letting all those years as the Rusted Knight just be forgotten from one day to another, but no one could comprehend how difficult it was to get accustomed to the way the dry air felt on Vacuo instead of the cold and cozy breezes of Everafter, or just the way in which he could hear the people’s sounds at night felt odd, as he was used to feeling the lack of it for so many years.
All those little things made him a stranger to Remnant, like he didn’t belong there, like his real home was, in fact, the Everafter.
He was totally aware he shouldn’t feel like that. On top of that, well… he was born here. This was the only place that had his friends, his family… and the only site that had them.
On the first nights in the Everafter, in those nights in which he could feel like he was losing all hope, in those little moments he would realize that he was years before team RWBY or someone appeared. The only thing that was on his mind, that warmed him and gave him hope… was coming back to the embrace of his teammates, to see Ren and Nora again.
At first glance, one might think,
“Why was he feeling like this?”
He was just beside them; they were on the other bed next to him. But he still felt distant from them. The way they could just sleep so calmly and peacefully made him feel like he still didn’t belong there.
As Jaune looked at the ceiling, still pondering his thoughts, the stupidest idea came to mind:
“What if he woke them up?”
It was true that they probably would help him sleep and find some way to stop him from overthinking… but some part of him worried that maybe if he tried to wake them up, they wouldn’t be so friendly. They totally could get angry and actually make things worse. Even though they would never be mad at him for doing something like that, that fear persisted in Jaune’s mind.
Because he had already lost them one time, he couldn’t even fathom the idea that they could leave—not only his side but his sight—again.
As he was on his bed, he tried to get a better position for sleeping, so he turned sideways to look at them while he tried to sleep. Maybe seeing them would comfort him enough to sleep… but it achieved the opposite effect. Even though they were just there in his sight, he couldn’t stop thinking about how far he felt from them.
That was something he had been feeling for a while now. He really didn’t know the precise moment he started to drift away from them, but if he were to pick a single moment, he should pick when they got together. Because before the Everafter, everyone assumed that they were going to start dating—even Ruby said it when they were traveling in Mistral.
But knowing that he had been gone for a whole year—and some decades for him—and they still could get through that and get together in his absence made him feel like he wasn’t needed. Maybe he should have stayed being the Rusted Knight and left them to be happy without him.
“I can’t be seriously thinking about this,” he said to himself, and so, if trying to sleep wasn’t working, he thought maybe going out to get some air could work.
So he got up from his comfy but lonely bed, took one last look at Nora and Ren, and went through the door with as much care as he could to try not to wake them up with the sound.
As he got out of the dorms and arrived at the courtyard of Shade Academy, it made him remember those nights all those years ago in which he would escape to the roof of Beacon with Pyrrha and train until he could get up from the floor.
He remembered how young and naive he felt when the world was still full of possibilities—not only for him but for his whole team—because something he couldn’t get out of his system was that, at that point in time, they were actually a whole team, not a fucked-up couple and a fifty-year-old in the body of an adult mourning a love he couldn’t even grasp until it was too late.
In times like these, he liked to fantasize: what would she do if she could still be here? She always knew what to do when things got hard, and since she left, Jaune always thought, “What would Pyrrha do?” and “What would Pyrrha need me to do?” But those questions couldn’t be answered today, at least not by her.
Someone in the distance noticed him. As he approached, Jaune realized it was Qrow.
“Hey there, kiddo. What are you doing up this late?” asked Qrow as he put down his cigarette.
“I was just taking some air,” said Jaune, with an expression on his face that could only be described as sadness.
“Are you okay? Do you need to talk about something?” asked Qrow, worried about his niece’s friend.
“I’m not sure… I kinda feel bad with Ren and Nora, although I shouldn’t,” said Jaune, looking directly at the floor.
“Well, kiddo, I get it. I had some troubles with how I felt with my teammates,” said Qrow, not knowing how to react.
“How?”
“Well… when Tai was dumped by Raven, he was kind of depressed, so me and Summer stayed some time to cheer him up.”
“Oh.”
“And after a lot of cheering up, Summer had Ruby and decided to stay with Tai and me… but I couldn’t get accustomed to their lifestyle, so I came and went from time to time,” said Qrow, as embarrassed as anyone had ever seen him.
For a moment, there was silence, awkwardness, and the sound of the wind.
“...Did you fuck Ruby’s parents?” asked Jaune awkwardly.
“That’s not important! What is important right now is that you should talk with them about your relationship with them… because you never know when your luck takes one of them,” said Qrow in a sorrowful way.
After that, Jaune said his goodbyes to Qrow and therefore decided that it was time to try and get some sleep again. It didn’t quite help him get what he needed, but maybe he could use that advice some other day.
As he walked to the dorm, he was met by an unexpected surprise: Nora, who was still in her pajamas, waited patiently at the door of the room.
“Everything’s fine? I saw you weren’t on the bed, and I got worried,” asked Nora, still sleepy as one could find her.
He couldn’t get any words from his mouth. He really couldn’t, even if he tried as hard as he could; his mouth was met by what could only be described as a cascade of thoughts that only came out through tears in his eyes.
And so, as he started to cry, they didn’t come as some small and cute tears coming from his eyes, but as those ugly cries that you could only see in little children.
She immediately woke up and, without a doubt, went to hug him. And as she did that, she pondered to herself. Of course, she knew that he felt kind of bad after everything they went through, but she never realized until this very moment how bad he was feeling. Seeing him—her friend who she fought countless battles with, who always had a plan for when a Grimm attacked—was holding her as tight as he could because if he tried to let go, he would surely fall to the floor. So she held him tight, as tight as she could, to make him feel as comforted as she could, so that her fearless leader could try to grasp some sense of relaxation after all that was going on in his head.
This warm and careful embrace lasted so long that, for him, it felt like time had stopped, as if everything wasn’t moving—or didn’t matter if it did—as long as the two of them were. It was as if their hearts and minds linked together by their arms in a way that only they could perform.
Nothing could make it better, except another person that came through the door. It was Ren, and when he saw the tears dropping from both of his teammates, he immediately went to join the hug.
Now Jaune's whole team was together in that hug. Now he felt complete with them—with their warmth, with their touch, with their everything.
As Jaune started to calm down and let himself be more relaxed, he talked to his teammates as he let go from that eternal embrace.
“So… I’ve been feeling kind of down,” said Jaune awkwardly.
“Yeah, we can te—” said Nora, kind of oblivious to the whole situation, before she was cut off by Ren.
“Not now, Nora,” said Ren, trying not to change the tone of the conversation.
Jaune then laughed a little bit before he let Ren continue to talk.
“Is this about what happened in the Everafter?”
“Not exactly. It’s just that my time as the Rusted Knight really did a number on me,” said Jaune, kind of ashamed, not telling them the whole truth.
“If you want, I could stop saying so much that you were the Rusted Knight, if that helps,” said Nora, ashamed for not realizing that could be harming Jaune.
“Or you could talk to us… if that helps,” said Ren.
“Yeah, all that time apart from everything… and especially from you two made me feel like—” said Jaune, as he was again interrupted by his own ugly cries that fell like a waterfall of sorrow.
“It’s okay. We are here, Jauney,” said Nora, as both of them hugged him again.
“I-I know,” said Jaune, still crying.
“If you want, we could go to sleep… I don’t know if it could help, but maybe we could sleep, the three of us together,” said Nora, kind of flustered and awkward.
“Like we used to do on our trip with Ruby?” asked Ren.
“Is that fine for you, Jaune?” said Nora.
“...Yeah.”
And so they did. They walked to their dorm, and in just one bed, the three of them went to sleep like they used to do on their trip through Anima, that for Jaune felt like it was ages ago.
As they started to get cozy with the small space—and especially with each other—Ren put himself on one side of the bed, with Jaune on the other, leaving the middle for Nora, something she really enjoyed.
As they were starting to fall asleep, Jaune pondered to himself once again. Maybe he really needed to talk some things to his teammates, although using that word to describe them felt really underwhelming. Maybe he needed to get in touch with his feelings. But for tonight, feeling their embrace and their company would help him get through the feeling.
At least for one night, he kind of knew who Jaune Arc was now.