In hindsight, Yang coming out of the vault with the Relic held high was just the start of Qrow's problems.

Leo's betrayal, the White Fang setting the place to blow, Hazel going on an Oz-centered rage frenzy... those were all issues, yes, but they were issues that had pretty clear resolutions.

Leo had been killed by Grimm after betraying them and outliving his usefulness to Salem. Blake showed up and stopped the White Fang, bringing Mistral police with her alongside half of Menagerie. Hazel and the other two of Salem's cronies fled in the chaos while Cinder was nowhere to be found. He hoped she was dead, but the woman was like a cockroach so he doubted there would be peace anytime soon on that end.

But Oscar and Ozpin crashing into a two day coma? Ozpin being inaccessible even when Oscar could stand to stay awake for longer than a shower and can of soup? Lumi's random popping in and out and the gift baskets that made their way to the training room?

He couldn't even begin to solve that.

Qrow did what he did best and soldiered on. There wasn't any true leader of the group, but as the oldest and literal uncle to two of the brats, the kids took his advice without grumbling. While they did maintenance on their weapons and caught up (Blake and Sun had a bucketload of stories to tell) he focused on bundling Oscar back to bed and checking in on Jaune.

To his great surprise, Oscar was the worse patient of the two. Jaune at least accepted that he needed to take it easy given the fact that Cinder had stabbed a hole through him. With how many older sisters he had, he was no stranger to being bossed around. Oscar, on the other hand, kept sneaking down to the living room and nearly burnt the house down making a pot of rice.

"We have a rice cooker!" He hissed at the laundry. "Damn stubborn kid..."

"You're one to talk," Lumi laughed, leaning on the doorframe.

"Whatev-" Qrow straightened and looked over his shoulder. A bone deep sigh escaped him. "Can I help you?"

She hummed. "Maybe. I think I can help you a bit more though."

"And why should I take any of your help?" He slammed the washer door.

"Well," she tapped a finger to her chin. "I didn't get caught in my own web of lies for one."

"Fuck off, Lumi," this was the second-worst case scenario, all things considered. "I have way too much shit to deal with already."

"I get that," her eyes narrowed. "But who do you think has been dealing with the Temples and putting off statements to the police? I need to give them something, Qrow."

"Tell them whatever you want," gods he was so tired. "I was trying to register the kids at Haven or something, I dunno."

"It would fit," she blew air at her bangs. "I'll run with it, thanks."

"What about Lionheart?" He crossed his arms. The dryer rattled at his back, warm and steady.

"Uh?" She scratched her cheek. "What about him?"

"He was a rat and now he's dead," he ignored the way his chest panged with loss. He shouldn't miss Leo.

"Grimm got him, which we can blame on the White Fang " she frowned. "What's there to say?"

"He was a good man," a young, raspy voice cut in. "He should- he should be remembered like that."

"What're you doing out of bed?" Qrow brushed past Lumi and placed his hands on Oscar's thin shoulders.

"I heard voices so I came to see for myself." Oscar, however, was not to be deterred or turned away. He stepped under Qrow's arm and faced Lumi directly. "Are you ready to talk now?"

"Hello to you too," she pulled out her Scroll. "And not right now- I had to sneak away from Rue just for this. She's been watching me like a hawk... I'm free in two days at one?"

"Or you can stay gone."/ "Yes!"

Qrow and Oscar glared at each other.

"Right then, see you," Lumi lifted a hand, looking for all the world like she was preparing for a hug, before vanishing through the shadows.

"Why did you do that?" Oscar spun on his heel and adjusted the blanket around his shoulders when it began to sag.

"Do what?" Qrow leaned against the doorway, back to the open hall. (It would be so easy to walk away, wouldn't it? Return to his roots and just shut out the world while bumming it in the Anima countryside.)

"Pick a fight with Lumi."

"Kid, that was not picking a fight," he sighed.

"Oh, really?" His eternally flushed cheeks and dark eye circles countered his snappish tone.

"Yes, really." Qrow shot back. He would be surprised if the kid lasted the hour without another nap. "You pretty clearly heard us talk about Leo, didn't ya?"

"That's not- you should have apologized!" His blanket bunched around his shoulders. "If we just apologize, she'll come back and everything will be okay."

"You're delusional," he rolled his eyes. "What should I apologize for? For her walking out and refusing to talk to us? Oz had his reasons to keep hidden, and so did you. I'm not saying sorry for supporting that."

"What reasons? That we were afraid?!" He stomped a socked foot. "Leo was afraid, your sister was afraid too, and now look at where it's gotten us!"

Qrow pushed off the doorframe and turned to leave. "I'm not doing this right now. Go to bed, Oscar."

"You can't just-" Oscar shouted, voice cracking, but Qrow was already a hall away.

The problems just kept piling up.

-[-]-

Lumi locked her Scroll and dropped it on the couch cushion next to her. She loved her team, she did, but there was a fine line between "checking in" on her and "stalking."

ESTL had taken the line, moved it two hundred yards, then set fire to it.

It was bad enough that she was getting bombarded with messages and calls from underclassmen, but to field video-calls from her team half an hour after bedtime after a full day of dealing with the Temples, police, and Rue? Then to get motivational posts and "positivity!" texts from the time she opened her eyes until she laid down again?

She would have taken another mission if she wasn't basically grounded.

"Lumi?" Rue called, keys in hand and shoes already kicked off at the door. She shrugged off her Healer's coat. "Oh, there you are."

"Yes, Rue," she grabbed a pillow and covered her face with it. "Here I am."

"Are you still moping?" She scoffed.

"Yes, Rue, I am." Gods, why couldn't the floor open up and swallow her? What other twenty year was grounded by their teacher?!

"Oh buck up," she whacked the back of the couch on her way to the kitchen. "You did well at Haven."

"Not well enough," Lumi dropped the pillow and got to her feet. Her medical file was still sitting on the kitchen table, mocking her.

"Well enough to get that annulment," she pointed out. "And to get the inquisition dropped."

"Woo," she slid onto a bar stool.

"I figured you would be happier about not having to pray for four hours under a waterfall," she raised a brow. "But if you really want to, I can-"

"-No thank you!" She almost toppled off her seat. "I'm fine, Master Forhan! I will engage in personal reflection and purify my heart when the moon empties as the Chants allow."

She snickered and set a cup of lemonade just out of reach. Lumi didn't have enough pride to stop her from half-climbing over the island and snatching the glass. She chugged half of it in one go, nearly choked on the blueberries, then sipped the rest like a normal person.

Rue hummed to herself and started pulling out dishes. She kept humming as she scrubbed and chopped vegetables, only stopping to drop a bag of chicken thighs and a cutting board in front Lumi with a strong side-eye.

She sighed but got up to wash her hands and get to work anyways. The meat was already defrosted and the knives were always kept sharp (clean cuts healed best) so it wasn't a difficult task.

"So," her mentor and roommate started.

Her stomach soured. She kept dicing the chicken.

"An annulment... that's pretty big."

"Yes Rue, it is."

"Any feelings about that?" She added oil to her bowl of sliced squash and zucchini.

"Not particularly," her shoulders hunched at the lie.

Being married didn't mean much to her when it was all a paper arrangement anyways, but there was Oscar to consider. Well, and Ozpin but the Temples didn't know anything about the Headmaster and neither had she going into the whole affair.

"None? None at all?"

"Okay there's some, why?" Her cleaver thunked against the cutting board. "Do the Sisters at the Temple have bets on whether I'll have an emotional breakdown? Why do you keep picking at this?"

"I'm concerned about you!" She defended. "I leave and you get married, you come back from a mission and not a week later you're injured worse than when the Grimm got you AND there was some sort of terrorist attack at Haven!"

"Well I didn't plan to get beat and dragged around!" She threw her hands up.

"That's my point!" Rue crossed the space and stopped, just out of arm's reach. "All of these big, serious things have been going on, and what have you told me? How much help have you actually asked for?"

Lumi flinched. "I'm dealing with it, just leave it alone."

"Are you?" She planted a fist on her hip. "When was the last-"

The shadows flickered along the walls then surged beneath Lumi's foot. She stepped into the bathroom and washed her hands in the dark. Rue could cook dinner if she wanted to lead her own personal inquisition. Lumi had enough on her plate between work, her teams, and her meeting tomorrow with the people she wanted to see least outside of her blood relations.

It was going to be a long day.

-[-]-

Ozpin stared dispassionately at the platter of store-bought cookies set out in a spiral on the cheap, crackling plastic plate.

His students, by their own admission, were first and foremost Hunters(-in-training) so their general lack of care for domestic work wasn't surprising. It was, however, disheartening. There was more to life than fighting the Grimm, and such a narrow viewpoint could seriously damage th-

"You're just mad nobody wants to feed you," Oscar griped and shoved a dry, crumbling cookie in his mouth. The decorating sugar tasted like sand and felt like it too, dissolving way too slowly to be anything but annoying.

... that wasn't quite true.

"'M not wrong." Bits of cookie stuck to his face.

... in any case, he could understand why no one in the house wanted to be in the house at this hour. Qrow had done the responsible thing and informed the students that Lumi was set to come over and discuss- well, everything. It had been their decision to clear out, but he couldn't fault them for it, even if he had been looking forward to Ruby and Yang teaching Weiss how to bake snickerdoodles.

So many batches of sweets that would have failed to meet Miss Schnee's exacting standards... so many batches that he would have been obligated to eat if only to prevent wasting food on such a scale.

"Leave some for the rest of us, pipsqueak," Qrow called and dumped an armful of cups and bottles into the sink.

Once the clatter died down (one of those cups was glass, and now broken) Oscar pointed half his cookie Qrow's way. "It's oatmeal."

It wasn't even good oatmeal at that.

The grey-haired huntsman stuck his tongue out and picked the non-broken cups from the sink. "Keep 'em."

He figured as much. Having Ozpin around was helpful for more than just learning how to fight with their cane.

The ceiling fan whirred and clunked soothingly above head. The house was nearly still.

Qrow lopped off the top half of a potato and started stabbing the glass shards in the sink- which was odd. Didn't he have aura? Lumi just-

Ozpin cleared his throat and turned their attention to the empty plate.

Oh.

Oscar added his plate to the pile to the left of the sink and wandered out to the living room. It wasn't a moment too soon as a knock rang out in the otherwise quiet.

Ozpin's steady calm kept Oscar from throwing up then and there. They answered the door with a small smile that wavered on the edges as a fresh burst of Lumi's citrus-sweet perfume hit them outright.

She was wearing her uniform from Marron's with Polaris holstered at her hip. Her faded blue-grey hair was dyed black, the same as it had been at Haven. It was nice to confirm that he hadn't hallucinated or misremembered that night. That under the blood and dirt she was the same as she always was.

Her right arm twitched but it was her left that lifted, a tightly gripped plastic bag bearing the logo of a bakery in hand. "Can I come in?"

He stepped aside.

They walked quietly to the living room and Qrow joined them with a muted "hey."

Lumi set the bag on the table then took the cushion on the loveseat closest to the armchair. The ceiling fan was still whirring away in the kitchen.

Oscar looked at Qrow. Qrow looked back. He looked at the loveseat then at the sofa.

Just sit next to her, Oscar. I highly doubt Miss Hazelwood is going to run for the hills at this point.

Ozpin had a point. Oscar took the cushion next to her and Qrow took the armchair.

Qrow also looked a little bit like he was going to jump out of the window, but that was normal.

"So," Lumi pulled a manila folder out of the bakery bag. "I ha-"

"I'M SORRY!" Oscar folded in half, almost a bow if not for the fact that they were sitting.

Qrow slapped a hand over his eyes.

Lumi blinked, mouth working open and closed before closing with a hum. "Thank you. Uhm. I have what could be good news...?"

"What is it?" Qrow peeked through his fingers.

Ozpin wished he was beside Qrow, back in his own body. If he were himself, they could give the younger two some space to talk and get over the sure to be emotional make-up.

"Well," she drummed her fingers on the back of the folder she held close to her body. "We don't qualify for a divorce for a few more months, but because of..."

Her face twisted, eyes flickering black for a brief moment before smoothing out. "The Temple is willing to do an annulment."

"Huh, that is good news," he lowered his hand from his face. "Where do I sign?"

"There's a catch," she passed him the folder then leaned back and crossed her arms. "I-"

"-the hell?!" Qrow flipped open the folder then threw it on the table, still open. Full sized, glossy pictures of Lumi from the night Haven was attacked spilled out. Beneath those were a thick bundle of what looked like tracing paper with neon blue lines.

It was almost unreal. She looked fine- healthy!- sitting there with them but Haven hadn't been much more than a week ago. The pictures brought back the ozone scent of Hazel's lightning attacks and the rough ash of Leo's volcano rocks crumbling beneath his hands when he tried to get to his feet. The dark splotches of drying blood that clung to Lumi's form and made a horrible outline of Jaune's body on the burned, broken floor.

Injuries like that would have taken weeks to heal if she didn't have unlocked aura, if she wasn't living with a Healer, if she wasn't able to Heal herself. But here she was with pastries and annulment papers. Alive.

"Rue put this together," she deadpanned and snatched the folder up(- but not before Oscar grabbed a smaller print of her staring at the camera with disdain. Qrow had his back turned and an arm out to shield the students.

So much had happened after the fight and he wasn't awake for any of it. He didn't know who was there and what happened to everybody until he had the strength to ask days later. It took even longer for Oz to wake up and between them they'd had an interview's worth of questions).

"ANYWAYS," she shoved the entire thing between her and the couch's arm. "If we go with the annulment, it'll be like the marriage never happened. I'll get guardianship of Oscar again- but therein lies the problem."

Oscar (and Ozpin with him) shifted to face her more fully. Why would... Oh.

"Only you would get guardianship, right?" he inclined his head.

She nodded. "We're back to where we started. Qrow can't have guardianship of you by himself unless we divorce or he goes completely above board with this, and both of those will take months."

"We don't have months," Qrow deflated, head lolling back with a groan. "Dammit!"

"I figured." She sighed. "So I need to know what you all plan to do- if you're staying, if you're moving back to Vale, you know, whatever?"

Ozpin glanced at his oldest friend. Now was the time to lay their cards on the table. "We need to get to Atlas."

"That's..." She blinked owlishly. "So, and I feel kind of dumb for asking, you don't have any plans for going to Sanctum?"

Oscar flushed. "Not really, no..."

"Okay then," she tapped her foot and a puddle of shadows spread out. They didn't do anything, but it was difficult to look at. "So we really can't get divorced or you'll both lose your ticket in."

"What?" Qrow sat up and reached for the inner pocket of his shirt.

"I have Atlas citizenship through my dad," the shadows climbed up the table and ensnared the bakery bag. Lumi flicked her hand and they went away. "And any spouse or child of mine automatically gets a free pass too. Otherwise you're just tourists and the border is closed, remember?"

He drained a quarter of his flask in one go.

"We can ask Ironwood to let us in, right?" Oscar glanced between them. "He's the headmaster at Atlas AND he's a general."

"You can try...?" Lumi's brow furrowed with a frown. "Do... have you ever met him? Does he know who you are- and by that I mean, would he know that you and the Headmaster are-" she linked her pointer fingers together.

"James is well acquainted with Qrow," Ozpin inched closer to the coffee table. "Though somewhat antagonistic, they do have a good working relationship."

She shifted uncomfortably. "If you're sure that will work, I'll go through with the annulment."

"Course it'll work," Qrow tucked his flask away. "Ironwood adores me."

"That's not convincing coming from you, Branwen," Lumi muttered and unveiled the paperwork at the back of the folder. She laid it on the table and pulled a pen from her bun.

That was one issue down.

"What's going to happen to me?" Oscar opened the pink bakery box and hesitated between an eclair and a cheese bread. "Will I still be able to leave Mistral?"

"Sort of," Lumi grabbed a doughnut. "I'll have to escort you to Argus, but after that- ah."

He placed the cheese bread by Qrow's knee and took the eclair from himself. "Did you think of something?"

Her purple irises turned black but Oscar couldn't see where her Semblance was active. "I could disavow you."

"The fuck is that?" Qrow initialed and flipped a page. "And why didn't you think of it earlier?"

"It takes both parents to give up a child," she threw a piece of her doughnut at him. "But if I'm not married then I can surrender my claim to Oscar without any harassment."

"Is... Is that something you have to do for this to work?" He tapped a finger against the table.

"Not strictly," she admitted. "But it might-"

"I don't want to."

Qrow raised his head from the papers in front of him. "Kid..."

"No." He doubled down though his stomach tightened. "I don't want to."

"It's not something that requires your consent," Lumi bit then closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "That came out wrong."

He couldn't see a way that could have come out right!

"You ran away from home to find Qrow. You found him and now you all are dead-set on going to Atlas," she tried again. "Why would you want to have any ties to me?"

"I liked living with you," he couldn't look at anyone. If their faces had any judgement... he couldn't take it. Not now.

"I wanted to keep living with you before- before that one dinner. I even asked Qrow for help on how to tell you about Oz."

He could see Qrow sit up and back in his periphery. Lumi was still as a statue.

"I want... I still want to be your friend." He glanced up at her. "Ozpin gave up everything when this happened to him. I get why he did, but I don't want to. I want- I want to still have friends a-and to be part of a family.

His face was burning hotter than fire dust. It had to be. There was no other way he could feel like this and not be half on fire.

"I left my aunt's because I knew it would be safer, but you're a Huntress. You know how to heal and you like me. You like me enough to basically adopt me and help me look for Qrow. Isn't that enough? Even if I'm not still in Mistral, I want... I want to belong somewhere. I want to belong with you."

"Oh dear heart." Lumi sighed. Her slim, scarred hand held his. "I wish it were that easy."

"Well why can't it be?!" Vertigo tinged the edges of his sight with how quickly his head whipped up. "Why can't we stay friends?!"

"Yeah, chickadee," Qrow drawled with a shit-eating grin. "Tell him why he can't be your friend."

"Shut up, Branwen," Lumi kicked him with a cap of aura on her foot. Qrow's leg locked and he hissed.

She turned back to Oscar with a considerably kinder look. "Of course we can still be friends, dear heart. Nothing would make me happier- but I can't still be your guardian."

"Why?" He pressed. Her hand tightened in his.

"The things I told you, when you were living with me? Before Qrow showed up?" She led him with a pained grin.

"I haven't even told him some of those things, so I don't feel comfortable with Ozpin knowing those things. And it's not your fault your souls got thrown together, but I don't... I can't accept having that kind of relationship with my old Headmaster. Even if he's only part of you. I would need... a lot of time before I was comfortable enough with him to even start hinting at things."

He got it, he did... but he didn't. So what if Ozpin knew about how trash Lumi's mom was? He wasn't going to judge her for it. He hadn't so far and wasn't going to start!

But Lumi was willing to keep coming around, and she probably wouldn't be if he didn't give her this. She had come over at least twice to talk; more if the baskets Ruby talked about were any indication. She wanted to move past things.

Oscar couldn't get everything he wanted in life even if Ozpin showing up had made most of his dreams come true.

"Okay," he conceded. "But you have to start coming over more."

"Of course," she inclined her head.

"And you have to go to Argus with us."

"I'll think about that one, but why not?"

"And you have to bake more milk bread."

"Absolutely not."

Well, it had been worth a try.