I'm your bad luck charm

Time moved forward, as time has a habit of doing, and as the months crawled by at an agonizing pace, he was no closer to finding a way out of Wonderland than the day he’d first happened upon the woman he’d spent his only night indoors with.  Occasionally, his thoughts would wander back to her.  Perhaps out of loneliness, perhaps because she was the only human being he’d had any sort of interaction with.  Or maybe he was just letting another organ do the thinking.

Whatever the reason, it remained that the day his flask was once again empty -- and he’d run out of pilfered cash to refill it -- somehow he found his way back to her.  Of course, she didn’t notice him where he perched in a nearby tree -- though he swore the massive dog walking with her had shot him an accusatory glance --  but she caught his attention immediately.  Maybe he could persuade her into another drink...  The thought vanished at the sight of her visibly distended stomach.

Well, there went that plan.  Still, he took flight, following behind her on silent black wings, though he couldn’t put his finger on why.  And over the next few months, he had just as much difficulty determining why he couldn’t stay away. He couldn’t say if she noticed the bits of food going missing from her kitchen whenever she was out, or the black feathers he always seemed to leave behind.  He might be a thief -- at least for now.  He’d already proven that the bandit lifestyle was not for him -- but Qrow had some sense of decency, enough to not steal from a pregnant woman, and so when food disappeared, bits of cash, or useful items began to appear in their place. And so it continued, even as she moved out of the caravan he’d found her in, back into a small apartment, her movements slowed, belly grew bigger, and some strange instinct within him that even he didn’t understand drove him to bring sticks, feathers, bits of string and other small debris to her living space with increasing frequency. Then, mid-November, after her apartment had been left vacant for several days, she returned as he’d barely slipped back out the window, a tiny blonde baby strapped into an oversized carseat.  Curious, Qrow watched her haul the infant out of the taxi from his perch in the tree outside her building, a sudden feeling of homesickness washing over him. Gods, he missed Ruby.  He spread his wings to take flight, but something below him caused him to freeze, and he nearly fell out off of the branch he sat on. The baby, barely a few days old, was gazing directly up at him from the sidewalk below, with bright red eyes that matched his own.  Qrow let his wings fall back to his sides, transfixed at the sight. It couldn’t be.

It wasn’t possible.

...was it? The inside of his head turned to static, and he spent an indeterminate amount of time staring down at the sidewalk without moving, even though she’d long since carried the child inside and out of view.  Thoughts raced so fast he couldn’t make sense of them, like trying to focus on one’s reflection in a flowing river. If anyone asked him what happened next, he couldn’t say.  Truthfully, from that moment forward, he couldn’t remember much of anything that happened, until the next time mother and child left the building, he gathered his courage and returned to his human form, landing lightly on the sidewalk behind her.