For all that Jaune went to bed with a lot of worry over what was happening between Ruby and Yang, and whether Blake and the rest of Team RWBY would ever truly forgive or trust him again, it wasn't a big surprise that he ended up in Cinder's dream that night. His new daughter's dream. The fallout of her discovering her old self and going on a rampage inside Beacon was so great that he couldn't focus on anyone but her.

The dream was fuzzy and indistinct, with the walls of the unfamiliar house he appeared in blurring like static on an old television set. There was little furniture to be seen, no pictures on the vibrating walls or flowers in the corners of the room, nor even places to sit. It looked like a newly bought home that no one had transported furniture to yet.

It also looked very fragile, like the walls might collapse in on themselves if he touched them. Jaune took a step and stumbled when his right foot pressed down into the floor and through, sinking into the ground. His left remained stable, but he could see the floor around it rippling like a disturbed pond. Nothing about this house – this dream, this memory – was stable.

Everything was on the brink of falling apart.

This must be the home I imagined up for Cinder to grow up in, he thought. No wonder it isn't stable when she only experienced it in a dream within a dream. None of this was ever real or ever existed.

Focusing, Jaune expanded his aura and imagined a more solid floor. Suddenly, his feet were back on the surface of it. Hard wooden planks interlocked beneath him. He expanded those to the edge of the room and then looked to the walls. They were still blurred like static. Concentrating, he forced plaster and paint up them – a vibrant shade of purple on one wall, and then white for the other three, and white for the ceiling as well. Interior decorating had never been his thing, but bold colours had to look better than the flickering static from before.

A soft and shaggy purple rug flopped out onto the floor, followed by lighter purple seating – a large three-person sofa and a smaller armchair for one. A pine coffee table clanked down atop the rug. Two flowerpots shimmered into life in the corner of the room, and several picture frames stamped onto the walls with sounds of nails driven into wood. Pictures of him and Cinder, but also of the others from both his team and Team RWBY. Younger versions of themselves, all of which he'd seen in one dream or another.

It took only a few minutes but Jaune felt noticeably tired after. Not exhausted on aura, but it'd definitely taken a hit to set this all up. He estimated as much as a quarter of his aura had been used to reinforce the memory. Not a moment too soon either, as the door handle clicked down and the door swung open.

A fully grown, adult Cinder stepped in.

Jaune almost panicked. "W—Welcome home," he stammered. "How was school?"

"School was... school..." Cinder frowned, her eyes glancing down. "Where... Where do I go to school again...?"

"Sanctum." Pyrrha's last school. It was the only one he could think of. Luckily, he had an excuse for her memory issues. The coma that Ozpin had suggested be faked for her. "Are you okay, sweetie? You're not experiencing any unusual headaches again, are you?"

"Headaches...?"

"You've been having some memory issues."

"Oh..." Cinder shrank a little. It wasn't much, maybe an inch or so, but it came with a shrink in other proportions. Her arms had less length, and she lost a little around the waist and some thickness in her legs. Her hair grew a little shorter. "Oh, I... I guess my head has been feeling a little stranger, Jaune—"

"Dad."

Cinder blushed. "Dad," she amended, looking a little pleased by the word.

Again, she dipped another inch. It looked to him like she was subconsciously altering her dream persona in reaction to what he said and how he acted – or, more likely, how she felt about what he said. There were two sets of subconscious memories at war; the old Cinder who saw herself as a vicious adult, and the new Cinder who saw herself as a child. Jaune knew which he would be fighting for.

"I've done a little decorating. The place was looking boring. What do you think?"

"I like it," she said, looking around. "How did you get so much done so quickly?"

"Ah, well. Secret of the trade. Maybe I'm just awesome like that. I cooked dinner for you. Why don't you sit down and I'll bring it through? You can leave your bag at the door."

"Bag...?"

Cinder glanced to her waist, where a schoolbag hung with a strap over her shoulder. In her defence, that wasn't a missed memory – he'd created it on her arm a second before he said it, to see if the subtle reminder she was meant to be a schoolgirl in these memories might influence her.

Sure enough, her form began to ripple. There was no change in height this time, but Cinder's clothing rippled into a school uniform he didn't recognise. A middle-length skirt and white blouse with a rather fancy blazer. He wondered if that was imagination on her part, or if it was an old uniform she'd worn. Cinder obviously would have had to go to school even if she was loyal to Salem. If only to maintain her cover.

No change physically but her seeing herself in a school uniform is probably a good thing. It should reinforce the idea she had schooling under me.

Moving into the kitchen, Jaune winced at the static and empty room, and quickly expended more aura to create a functional kitchen. White tiles, white appliances, black marble surfaces and a silver sink. It felt wasteful, but he didn't want to run the risk she'd walk in there and panic at seeing everything so empty. Making a show of clinking around, he summoned up two plates of food. A simple minced beef and vegetable stew in thick gravy. He wasn't sure what she actually liked, or he'd have conjured that up instead.

"There's some ice-cream once you've eaten," he said, coming back into the living room to see Cinder sitting on the larger sofa. She was looking at the pictures on the walls, her head tilted as she tried to recollect the scenes within. Her eyes darted to him when he entered, then to the food.

She shrank another half-an-inch, looking closer to sixteen than nineteen.

"What flavour?"

"Your favourite," he hedged.

"Salted caramel!?"

"Of course." Jaune set the food down and took the spot next to her, close enough that their hips were touching. "But you can only eat it if you finish your vegetables. You need to grow big and strong like your old man."

"I'm already plenty big."

"Ah, I don't know about that. You're still little to me."

Cinder lost another two inches of height, closer to fourteen. With it went a lot of width in her waist and shoulders, and her legs became quite thin as well. Less developed all over. It was working.

I'd better make sure not to force it, though. It's fine if she sees herself as being this young, but if I use my aura to make her like this then she'll de-age in the real world as well.

Would that be such a problem? It'd be a solution to hiding her, since no one would assume a girl who was eleven could be Cinder. But then she'd have even worse memories since she'd be younger than her childhood friends – and there was always Salem to remember. If Salem came for them and got past Ozpin, it might be better if Cinder were older and capable of fighting.

They ate with quiet chatter, Jaune asking how things were with Yang and Pyrrha and the others. Cinder came up with stories from school – not seeming to realise they were all made up by her subconscious. Once the stew was done, he took the plates away and summoned up some salted caramel ice-cream with whipped cream and even some caramel sauce. Cinder's eyes lit up as she dug in, beaming at him.

"What do you say?" he teased.

"Thank you, dad!"

Cinder lost another two inches. She must have had a growth spurt in real life between her twelfth and thirteenth birthdays, because it was a rather sudden shift in her appearance. Her hair was also much shorter, only coming down to her shoulders. Of course, she still had her faunus ears, believing those a part of her since birth.

For all that he'd worried, the dream was going remarkably well. In fact, it was probably a good thing he ended up here and interfered before she could start dreaming of an empty house with blurred walls and fragmented memories. He'd have to tell Ozpin tomorrow, but he had a feeling his instructions would be to keep it up. Help Cinder fill the gaps in her memories with happier ones of her upbringing here.

A brighter life than whatever had pushed her into Salem's arms.

/-/

Building up the rest of the house left Jaune feeling exhausted – worryingly low on aura. He'd had to build a corridor, a staircase, and at least a bathroom and a bedroom for Cinder on the upper floor. Enough for her to be able to see the place was a loving home. That much change forced onto the dream had him flagging below a quarter aura. Enough that he'd feel it tomorrow and might even need to take time off school for it.

Hopefully though, this would be a one-time thing. Cinder would remember what her home looked like now, and any future dreams would be based off this. His creation would become her standard and she'd fill in the blanks next time.

Such was the theory, anyway.

After an afternoon of eating and talking, Cinder asked if he'd read her a story in bed – and he readily agreed. Her bedroom was almost insulting in its cuteness, but he really did want to reinforce the idea of being cute and harmless. Once more, he filled the wall with pictures of the two of them, along with Cinder and her childhood friends. Jaune sat on a chair at the bedside while she climbed under the covers.

Cracking open a book revealed blank pages, and he had no idea how much aura he'd need to use to generate an actual story. Luckily, he could bullshit.

"Once upon a time there was a boy who wanted to become a huntsman. The boy asked his father to train him, but his father never did, leaving the boy no choice – in his mind – but to lie and cheat his way into an academy..."

Cinder listened, sheets up to her nose, giggling at the funny parts and gasping at points where Jaune had almost considered giving up. There was no grand ending, not yet, so Jaune picked a point that felt fitting.

"—and that's when the boy learned how to stand up to his bullies, and to accept help from his friends. He'd thought he was showing strength by trying to deal with it all on his own, but in reality he had been hurting those who loved him. This time, he'd do better." Jaune closed the book. "The end."

"That boy..." Cinder said. "He was dumb."

Jaune chuckled. "Yes. Yes, he was. You should learn from his mistakes." He set the book down on a nearby shelf and stood up. If Cinder spent the rest of this dream asleep, that'd be good for him. His aura was low enough already. "Sweet dreams. We'll do something fun on the weekend together."

"Mm. Goodnight," she replied.

Jaune had closed the door and taken two steps outside when Cinder shouted, "Daaaad!"

He came rushing back in. Cinder was up on her knees in bed, pointing shakily with one hand to a cupboard he was sure he hadn't created on her wall.

"Monster!" she said, shaking. "M—Monster..."

"Cinder, there's no—" The cupboard door shook. Crap. Dream. There absolutely could be a monster in there. Jaune took a deep breath and subtly brought what aura he had up around himself. "I'll deal with it, sweetie. It'll be fine. Trust me."

Moving over to the door in a way that blocked her sight of it, Jaune eased it open just an inch, enough to see inside. There was a literal Beowolf in the closet. Six feet tall, and wider than should have fit, with bright red eyes and razor-sharp teeth. It opened its maw and hot air wafted against Jaune's face.

Jaune frowned. "No," he whispered. "Just no."

His aura took hold of it and twisted. Since it was just a figment of Cinder's imagination, it wasn't hard to change the beast. It dropped half its height and became pudgy, its fur changing to synthetic material and its eyes remaining red but taking on a glassy, solid sheen. Its claws turned pudgy and soft, and it settled back on its hind quarters.

Within seconds, the Beowolf had become a three-foot tall teddy.

One that Jaune wasn't sure any parent would give a small child, unless it was meant to be an ironic teddy for a teenage goth girl who wanted plush toys but needed them to have a certain level of edginess. Either way, it wasn't as threatening.

"Oh Cinder." He laughed and tugged it out. "You saw this, sweetie." He showed her the massive teddy-bear, and Cinder relaxed. "I knew we shouldn't have kept this in here. You must have seen some moonlight reflect off its eyes through the door. It's no wonder you'd think it a monster."

"Uh. Um. S... Sorry..."

"It's okay." Jaune set the teddy down beside her bed where she could see it. That should keep it harmless. "I'm not upset. And better you call me to make sure than not get any sleep because you're scared."

"I wasn't scared!" she blurted out, voice taking a defensive edge. It felt like a very Cinder Fall thing to say, and he worried for a moment before she blushed and poked her fingers together. "I was just... cautious..."

Cute.

"Ahah. Is that so? Well, I'm glad my daughter is so cautious. Anything else you want me to take a look at?"

Cinder shook her head. "No."

"Good. Then I'll go to bed. Shout me if you need me."

"Mmm. Night, dad."

"Goodnight."

Jaune stepped back out into the corridor but didn't bother to move. If Cinder's brain was trying to reconnect her memories by showing her aspects of her past life, then this wouldn't be a one off occurrence. This reminded him too much of Velvet's first dream, the one where he'd been babysitting her, and how even after he dealt with several movie-trope villains, more had come. A nightmare wasn't going to give up after a single scare.

"Daaaaaaad!"

He pushed back in. "Wha—"

Cinder's entire bed was shaking, and black tentacles were coming out from beneath it. He could see a white face with black eyes. Salem, in her full monstrous form, bared her teeth at Jaune from the foot of the bed.

And Cinder was in tears.

"It's a spider," he said, stepping on Salem's face and willing her to be squashed. The Grimm-woman exploded into sparks of black light, and Cinder's bed thumped back down to the ground. The girl leapt into his arms when he came close, sobbing. "Shhh. Shhh. It's okay." He stroked her back. "How about I stay here until you fall asleep, okay? I won't leave the room until you're fast asleep."

As Cinder nodded against his chest, he looked around for more risks. The room had several new addition he had not made when he first created it. How much of those were nightmares waiting to happen and how many were Cinder's subconscious imagining up what her bedroom might look like was unknown.

There was a dresser with a desk, which looked innocuous and sensible enough. There were some schoolbooks on it, along with her schoolbag. The wardrobe that the Grimm had been in stood closed, and there were now a few smaller teddy-bears at the foot of the Grimm one, including a stuffed little yellow bear which Jaune absolutely did not recognise. Its black button eyes seemed to watch him unnaturally.

Additionally, there was a window with curtains drawn. He hadn't thought to make one so it made sense Cinder would unconsciously dream it. Of course a bedroom was going to have a window. There'd be no fresh air or natural sunlight otherwise. Light flashed outside, either from lightning or a car going by, illuminating a shadowy shape on the other side of the curtains.

Dangling from a rope.

"On second thought, let's have you sleep with me tonight." Jaune scooped Cinder and her sheets up, still keeping her against his chest so she couldn't see any of the nightmares manifesting in her bedroom. "My bed is big enough for the both of us."

The nightmares might not really have been nightmares at all, but simple memories that the old Cinder held, that her new, younger mind was reacting to. Salem had been an obvious part of Cinder's life and someone she was intimidated by, and so how else was her younger self supposed to act on seeing her? The rest might just have been her mind trying to reconnect the dots or parse old memories. Cinder probably hadn't been scared by Grimm for years, so the Beowolf in the closet might have been less to scare and more to remind Cinder of who she'd been and what she'd done.

A literal skeleton in the closet.

Using much of what little aura he had left, Jaune made a simple bedroom for himself. Cinder wouldn't see much of it past his chest, so it was really just a double bed in the middle of the room. He set her down and drew the blankets over them, pulling her against his chest so she could sleep with her nose and eyes blocked by him.

"I'm sorry..." she whispered.

"Nothing to be sorry about. It's my job to protect you from bad things."

"But they're nightmares," she mumbled. "It's immature."

"Don't worry about that."

Jaune stroked her hair until she relaxed against him. There was no reason for her to worry about immaturity here. Not when his bed was surrounded by figures. There was Salem, there was Tyrian, there was Hazel and Watts. But there were also people he didn't recognise. People from her life who might have died or been killed by her. One he did recognise was her cruel adoptive mother, but there was also a man looking down on her with a disappointed gaze. Jaune covered her head with his hand, knowing they wouldn't – or couldn't – act against her. In most cases it was the looks in their eyes that would cause her the most pain.

But not all of them were new to him.

Jaune stared hard at Amber, the former fall maiden, as she stood at the foot of the bed with a black-feathered shaft sticking out her chest and blood trickling down her chin.

It wasn't her. He knew that. She only had eyes for Cinder, not seeing him, and she'd fallen in love with him – or convinced herself she had in her dying dreams – so he very much doubted she'd have silently focused on Cinder instead of talking to him. This was nothing more than a figment of Cinder's imagination. A memory that haunted her.

But why...?

Salem and her people, he could understand, as he could her cruel adoptive mother. People who had frightened or harmed Cinder in her past. People who evoked fear. But Amber had been a victim, nothing more, and hadn't really ever been in a position or fight back against her. There was no reason for Cinder to be afraid of Amber. Ozpin, maybe, and Qrow – and even Jaune with his Semblance. But not Amber.

And yet there she was, somehow haunting Cinder's nightmares.

Could it be guilt...? Did Cinder feel guilty for having killed her? That sounded so alien that he dismissed it immediately, and yet the thought came back. Obviously, this couldn't be the new Cinder's feelings because she didn't even know what she'd done to Amber, so whatever was here was a part of the old Cinder.

And it wasn't impossible. Even bad people couldn't be immune to regret or guilt – they were bad not because they didn't feel them, but because they continued to do terrible things despite them. Cinder would have had a conscience even before; it was just something she ignored on a regular basis, seeing her own goals and aims as being more important than everyone else's.

But it seemed she regretted Amber on some level...

Or maybe less regret, but more that she would have preferred to steal the power without killing her if that had been an option. Jaune wasn't sure if it changed anything. Amber had died – innocent, kind Amber. And Cinder had killed her. His arms tightened around the killer in his arms, but he couldn't harm her. He wasn't sure Amber would have been able to either. The Cinder responsible for all this was dead.

All that remained was an innocent childlike mind.

"I'm sorry," he mouthed to Amber, even though he knew it wasn't her. "I'm sorry, but I think you would agree with this."

The real her, anyway. The figment of Cinder's imagination didn't once react to his attention, nor look at him. She loomed, as did the others, all around the bed, pinning Cinder in from all sides and threatening to throw her into despair if she made eye contact.

Jaune slowly drew the blankets up to her cheek and settled his hand over her face to cover her eyes.

Cinder's breathing deepened.

Crisis averted.

/-/

Arthur Watts found Cinder's fate deliciously ironic, reading about it through material gleaned from Ironwood's private computer. The man didn't even know Arthur had access, so arrogant was he, so sure of Atlas' technological superiority that he couldn't so much as harbour the suspicion it might be breached.

"It seems like Cinder has been neutralised," he told Salem. "Devolved in mind to the state of a child, slapped with false memories of a life free of ever meeting you. The girl acts like a frightened child." He scoffed. "Fitting."

"It won't save her," Salem said. "Ignorance of her betrayal does not make her innocent of it."

Petty. Arthur wouldn't say it, but he found Salem's insistence on settling this debt to be more childish than Cinder's current predicament. It was galling to imagine someone so old, so experienced, acting so immaturely.

"Well, there might be an opening for us," he said. "Cinder's remaining little minion, the girl with the illusion Semblance, has been taken in by Atlas. It wouldn't be difficult for me to spring her out if you wish it. I'm sure she would long to have Cinder back."

"Would she work with me?"

"Oh, I doubt she'd be loyal to us." For all that Cinder had done wrong, instilling slavish loyalty in the girl had been a masterful move. Love was always more motivating than fear. "But we don't need her to. The girl can create a distraction that Beacon will have to respond to, and that will buy us time to act. And if she should succeed in reaching Cinder, she might be able to bombard her with illusions showing Cinder who she truly is – or was. They might serve to jog her memory and bring her back."

"And then I can see the horror in her eyes as I descend on her and she knows every mistake she has made..."

"Yes. Of course."

Had Salem already forgotten about the boy? About Ozpin? Arthur didn't think so, but she was too angry to focus. Again, it was petty. Pathetic, even. It had been equally foolish how Cinder simply trusted the boy in her mind. Of course he would use his Semblance to strike at her. Arthur couldn't even fault the lad, since it was self-defence at its finest. Though he'd have killed Cinder rather than turn her. A useful ally she may have been, but her loyalties had proven flexible before and would be flexible again in the future.

"If you wish to exact vengeance on Cinder and put Ozpin down, I can extract the boy," Arthur suggested. "It's a task more fitting of my skillset, and I'm hardly going to fall asleep near him and let him harm me."

"And you're not tempted to take his power for your own, Arthur?"

He laughed. "Tempted after seeing what he did to Cinder? No thank you. I'm rather proud of my mind and intellect. Arrogantly so, as you have put it before. I wouldn't dare risk him taking it away from me."

Not so recklessly anyway. No matter how loyal the boy pretended to be, it might always be an act. The only way to be sure was to remove his capacity for free thinking. Arthur already had ideas. Merlot's old research into controlling Grimm might prove useful, and there was always the possibility of a little neurological surgery to remove some of the boy's higher thinking patterns.

Lobotomy was a sham of a practice and nonsense at best, but only if the aim was to heal or fix someone's problems. If the goal was to reduce someone to a broken and malleable state and lessen their quality of life, then it was far more applicable. He wouldn't need the boy capable of reasoning or even feeding himself; he just needed him capable of falling asleep and doing as he was told.

But, for now, he could play along. Cinder hadn't been wrong to cut away from Salem. No, her mistake had been in the timing. Thoughts of betrayal should come when there were less distractions, and when it didn't mean entering a three-way-battle between them, Salem and Ozpin.

"Leave it to me, ma'am. I'll have the boy tranquilised and stolen away. But we had best see to freeing Cinder's little accomplice first. Would it be possible to have a distraction aimed toward Atlas' flagship? Getting her out her cell will be easy; getting her off there if every soldier on board is ready and alert is a little beyond my capabilities."

"At least you know them, Arthur. That makes you more valuable than Cinder ever was. You shall have your distraction. Give me a time and I shall ensure Atlas has plenty to worry about."