Nine Days of Lancaster 2026
Day 4: Patching Up Injuries / "I need you"
The inn's room door opened by the kick of a black boot with red sole. Behind Ruby, Nora and Ren were carrying a grunting Jeanne by under her arms, while Ruby fished for the first aid kit inside her backpack.
"I'll treat her injuries," Ruby said low and sharp as they sat Jeanne on the bed. "You should rest too. It was a heavy fight."
Noticing the indirect order, both left almost immediately, Nora giving Jeanne one last worried glance before gently closing the door.
"Can you sit up straight?" Ruby asked, kneeling on the bed behind Jeanne.
She didn't reply, and just did as she was told, lifting her arms up so Ruby could take off her hoodie. It was shredded on the back, stained with blood. It could have been worse if the back plate of her old armor didn't take the first hit.
Checking the damage, Ruby's breath caught as she saw the four lacerations matching an Ursa's paw.
"I'm taking off the rest."
She didn't wait for an answer before carefully pulling off Jeanne's shirt, then her bra, pushing her braid aside to leave her back bare.
The cuts stretched diagonally across her shoulders and back. Jeanne's Aura was already patching the more superficial ends, but they were deep enough to be dangerous if left untreated. It would take at least a whole night for them to heal up entirely, plus needing to make sure the wounds wouldn't infect.
Ruby took a deep breath through her nose, then another. Neither helped. Her hands were shaking as she rummaged through the kit, her jaw tightening until she found the cotton and a bottle of iodine.
"What were you thinking?!" Ruby finally exploded, making Jeanne wince.
"Well…" she began carefully. "My first thought was 'must protect Ruby'."
Ruby didn't reply. She just uncapped the bottle and wetted some cotton with the antiseptic.
"Then my second thought was 'oh crap, Ursa'." Jeanne continued, taking slow breaths. Anything harder made the cuts feel like opening even more. "And I finally remembered I left my sword at the bla-agh!"
Jeanne yelped as she felt the cold and hot kiss of iodine on the fresh wound.
"You threw yourself at an Ursa!" Ruby yelped back, despite keeping her hand steady and carefully cleaning the first slash.
"Because it was charging at you-ugh!" Another press of fresh iodine down the first wound made Jeanne groan, then hiss through her teeth.
"Ruby!" She tried to look back. "Ouch!"
"I hope you remember this exact pain." Another careful pass of iodine. "Next time you think of throwing yourself at danger."
Despite the anger, Ruby's pulse was steady as she moved over the second slash with more iodine. Jeanne tried not to say anything that may set her off, but as Ruby finished the second cut, she couldn't hold it in.
"It was charging at you." She kept her tone neutral, trying not to react too much to the iodine.
"I know." The reply came instantly, low and calm. "I was there, Jeanne."
The room fell quiet for a moment except for Jeanne's sharp breaths.
"I saw it coming." She changed cottons. "And then I saw you throw yourself in front of it."
Jeanne sighed. "It wasn't that dramatic."
Ruby stopped moving, looking up and down at the wounds she was nearly finished cleaning.
"I'm literally looking at the harm that slash did, Jeanne." Ruby tried to resume cleaning the last slash, but her hands finally started trembling. The fur on her wolf ears had flattened tightly against her head.
"You could have died," she whispered.
"I have more Aura than you," Jeanne said before she really thought about it.
Ruby froze, throwing the last cotton from her trembling hand.
"You were also disarmed!" She shouted, letting the iodine bottle hard on the table before she threw it away too. "An-- and you don't have a Semblance!" Her tail lashed behind her once, sharp and agitated.
"Ruby…" Jeanne tried to turn around, but Ruby held her shoulders.
"Don't turn." She gulped a sob back in, picking up the first aid kit again. "I still need to bandage those up."
Jeanne let out a long breath through her nose.
After a pause, she grunted. "I'm listening," as she pulled out gauze and medical tape.
"I have more Aura than you." Ruby didn't answer.
"And Nora." Still nothing as she began wrapping the bandage around Jeanne's ribs.
"And Ren." A pull of the bandages made Jeanne wince.
"Sorry," Ruby said quickly. "That one was unintentional." The next loop of gauze was gentler.
"I don't have a Semblance yet," Jeanne continued. "I didn't have my sword. Most of what I can do is take a hit."
Ruby's hands stopped, so she pressed on.
"If I can't fight as well as the rest of you," Jeanne swallowed. "Then the least I can do is make sure I take the first hits."
For a moment Ruby didn't move, then she cut the roll of bandages to finish with Jeanne. She collected the iodine and capped it back, slow and careful to avoid throwing them into the first aid kit in one go. Then clicked it shut.
"The least you can do?" Ruby's voice cut the silence.
Jeanne immediately regretted the wording.
"No." Ruby stood from the bed and put herself in front of Jeanne. "Explain that one to me." Her silver eyes were glimmering. "The least you can do?"
"You think the only thing you're good for is getting hurt?" Ruby remained steady, despite closing her hands into fists.
The room went dead silent. Jeanne wasn't sure how to reply, but her distressed look made Ruby drop her shoulders.
"Jeanne, that's insane," Ruby let out a small snicker, then sitting next to her on the bed, avoiding her gaze entirely. "I don't need that kind of protection."
Her voice was suddenly very quiet.
"Neither does Nora," she continued. "Nor Ren."
Jeanne's shoulders slumped. "I was trying to help."
"By getting yourself killed?!"
Ruby immediately looked guilty. Then angry again, this time at herself.
Jeanne looked down at the floor before slowly turning over to Ruby, whose cheeks were wet from her tears. The cuts on her back still burned under the bandages, but this argument hurt worse.
"I just…" Jeanne squeezed her eyes shut as her voice cracked. "I don't want to lose anyone else."
"I can't--" Her hands were trembling. She swallowed hard. "I can't do that again."
Ruby didn't say anything. Jeanne wasn't even sure she was breathing anymore.
"Not after Pyrrha," she finally let it out.
Silence claimed the room again. Neither of them knew what to even say after that.
"I don't want to lose anyone else either." Ruby's voice was barely above a whisper.
Jeanne blinked and looked directly at her. Ruby was sitting with her legs up on the bed, hugging her knees and looking straight at the floor.
"My partner was taken to Atlas, my sister couldn't even leave the house, and Blake just… disappeared." Ruby sniffed. "And I keep thinking that it was all my fault for not holding us together."
"And now I can't keep you or Nora and Ren safe?" Ruby her eyes with her palm.
"What if I'm just not enough?" The confession seemed to hurt more than the fight.
Jeanne felt her chest tighten. "Ruby…"
"And now you're doing this." She gestured vaguely toward Jeanne's bandaged back. "Throwing yourself into danger because of me."
Ruby's ears folded completely flat.
"The last thing I want--" her voice broke as she buried her head between her knees. "Is watching you suffer because of me." Then she began to sob.
Suddenly the entire argument looked different. She wasn't angry because Jeanne got hurt, or at Jeanne. Ruby had been blaming herself for all of it, just like she blamed herself for everything else.
And Jeanne now made Ruby carry her own self-punishing as her own.
For another long moment, neither of them said a thing.
Then Jeanne carefully turned herself around. The movement pulled at the cuts across her back, making them feel just as if the Ursa came back to open them again. But she ignored it as she approached Ruby, pulling her in for a hug.
"I'm sorry." Jeanne's throat tightened. "I didn't realize."
The words felt inadequate, but she didn't have anything else.
"I was so busy worrying about losing people that I never stopped to think what I was asking you to watch."
Ruby's eyes widened. Then she lowered her knees to better hug Jeanne back, careful not to touch her back. Her tail wrapped around Jeanne's waist almost automatically.
"I need you," she said, resting her head on Jeanne's shoulder.
"Not because you're stronger or can take more hits." Ruby continued, picking up strength. "I don't care about any of that."
Jeanne felt tears gathering in her own eyes.
"I need you because you're you." Ruby finally pulled back and looked up, her silver eyes looking straight at Jeanne's deep blue ones.
Everything stopped. Time and space, air and light all got suspended in that one single moment.
That one word neither of them had said until this one time.
"Ruby…" Jeanne's vision blurred, as a sob escaped. She immediately wrapped her arms around Ruby, holding her tightly, as if afraid she may vanish.
Ruby broke completely at that, burying her face on Jeanne's shoulder again. She rested her cheek against Ruby's hair.
For a long moment neither of them spoke, first sobbing into each other, then relaxing against each other.
Finally holding each other.
Ruby slowly curled into Jeanne's arms, as she leaned over, holding her with one arm around her waist and the other in her hair.
Eventually, Ruby sniffed and wiped at her eyes, pulling back to talk to Jeanne.
"You can't do that again."
Jeanne frowned. "Do what?"
Ruby closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then stared at Jeanne with the intensity she usually reserved for Grimm.
"I'm serious," her stare softened as she reached up to take Jeanne's hands into her own.
"Promise me," Ruby pleaded.
Jeanne hesitated, but Ruby wouldn't let go of her hands.
"Only if you promise me something too," she said, making sure to meet Ruby's gaze with her own. "Stop blaming yourself."
That made Ruby freeze. It was Jeanne's turn to hold her hands from pulling away.
"It wasn't your fault." Jeanne brushed a thumb across Ruby's knuckles.
"I don't know if I can promise that." Ruby closed her eyes.
Jeanne considered pushing, starting a new argument. But instead, she just nodded.
"You don't have to promise," she said, softly. "I know you'll try."
Ruby blinked. "You really believe in me that much?" One of her ears twitched upward hopefully.
"Yes," Jeanne smiled warmly at her.
"Why?" The question came out so small and vulnerable.
"Because you believe in me," Jeanne shrugged, as if it had been obvious. "Because every single day you choose to keep going, and it only makes me want to follow you. Even if it's to hell and back."
"And if you think I can do better?" She snickered, the nerves catching up to her. "I know I can."
Jeanne rested her forehead against hers.
They simply sat there with their foreheads touching, hands intertwined between them. Ruby's tail remained loosely wrapped around Jeanne's waist, neither of them acknowledging it.
She would probably keep taking too much responsibility for things that weren't hers to carry, and Jeanne would probably keep trying to take the first hit meant for her friends.
Neither of them would stop struggling overnight.
But they wouldn't be alone.
I think I took this one too seriously.
