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“So,” Caitlyn says slowly. “Dresses.”
“Dresses,” Vi agrees.
“I hate dresses.”
“Unless you want to spend half your day trying to wrestle your tight pants over a cast, it’ll have to be dresses until your leg has healed.”
“My pants aren’t tight!” Caitlyn protests.
“Uh huh. Right.”
“Anyway, I don’t even have a cast yet,” Caitlyn grumbles, more or less to herself.
“Splint, cast, doesn’t make a difference. You’re still gonna need a closet overhaul.” Vi glances at the closet in question. It’s the size of a small room. It looks bigger than her cell in Stillwater.
Caitlyn appears to catch her glance. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’re going to need new clothes too.”
Vi shrugs. “I’ll wash these, it’ll be fine.”
“And what’ll you be wearing while you wash them?” Caitlin’s lips quirk into a smile.
Vi crosses her arms. “Look, Cupcake, if you want to play dress up you’ve only gotta say.”
“It’s not that.” Caitlyn’s eyes skitter away. “I want – a lot of things happened. I’d rather – I’d like –“
“Oh.” Vi’s shoulders droop. “I remind you of… everything.”
“No!” Caitlyn says instantly. She reaches out a hand to Vi without any conscious thought on her part. Once she notices, she instantly drops it to her side. “The opposite. I thought – I thought it would be better if we start again. A clean start. We’ve got to move on from here.”
“You know it’s gonna take more than a change of clothes, yeah?” Vi doesn’t say that the problem with new clothes is that she’ll still be the one wearing them and that she, really, is the problem.
“I know. But it’s a start. It’s something I can do.” For a brief moment, Caitlyn’s gaze meets Vi’s. “Please. Let me do this.”
Vi sighs theatrically. “Fine. But none of your clothes are gonna fit me. You’re way too tall and practically made of legs.”
Caitlyn flushes. “Something can be arranged.”
“If you arrange for a dress, there’s going to be a murder.”
Caitlyn nods. “I see. A selection of evening dresses it is.”
“Caitlyn…”
Caitlyn holds up a hand to hold off the inevitable death threats. “Give me some credit, Vi. Now, help me pick out something to wear.”
“What? You want – what?”
“Would you prefer to just stand there and hold things?” Caitlyn says patiently.
“Unless you want to end up looking like a clown, I’m pretty sure you’d prefer that too.”
In the end, Caitlyn settles on something that’s almost identical to her normal warden uniform, except that it ends in a skirt with a short hem. To compensate, Caitlyn insists on wearing high boots. Vi isn’t totally sure how Caitlyn plans to get them on, but this entire situation is so far out of her frame of reference that she’s beginning to doubt that she even knows what boots are. She’s never had more than a handful of outfits, and most of them were variations on the theme of ‘cheap and durable’.
In any case, if Caitlyn thinks she can manage the boots, Vi isn’t going to argue.
“You know, you didn’t even take your pants off while you were in the shower. What makes you think that you can do it now, and then put on those boots?”
Okay, so maybe she’s going to argue a little.
“I’ll manage,” Caitlyn replies airily.
“When you get stuck halfway, don’t expect me to come in and rescue you. When it comes to getting dressed you’re on your own.”
Caitlyn just huffs and moves into her room. It’s only after the door has closed that Vi realises she doesn’t know what to do with herself. She knows how to get from here to the nearest bathroom and that’s about it. There’s a reasonable chance she could find the kitchen just by wandering around and following her nose, but then she’d have to leave Caitlyn and be gawked at by servants. Neither option appeals.
She contemplates asking Caitlyn if she’s done yet, or if she’s figured out how impractical her clothing choices really are. She decides against it. She would have done it yesterday in a heartbeat – or, more accurately, she wouldn’t even be around in the first place. But since then so many things have happened. Vi feels like she’s walking across a lake of thin ice – it’s cracked enough that she can see the dark waters beneath, and its only a matter of time before it breaks entirely. She thinks of Caitlyn who, despite all reason, doesn’t hate her. Caitlyn, who looks at her and doesn’t see the person who’s responsible for her mother dying. There’s a part of Vi that dreads looking at Caitlyn only to see hatred blazing across her face. It would be so natural to see it. After all, Vi hates herself. It only makes sense that Caitlyn should too.
So she decides not to needle Caitlyn. As such, Vi is taken almost totally by surprise when the door opens and Caitlyn limps out. It’s not perfect – one of her boots is stretched and warped from the makeshift splint that she’s stuffed in it – but it works. It looks more like a fashion choice than it has any right to.
“So,” Caitlyn says, “what do you think?”
For a moment, Vi finds it difficult to stop her gaze from drifting to Caitlyn’s legs. She clears her throat and forces herself to look at Caitlyn’s face. “Not bad.”
For a moment, Caitlyn looks like she was expecting something else. But then the moment passes, and she says “Come on. I’ll show you where the dining room is.”
~*~
Doctor Kiramman is waiting for them when they arrive in the dining room. If he has been waiting long, there’s no sign of impatience. If anything, he seems happy that they’re there at all. There’s a brief attempt at conversation as Caitlyn explains where they were, but then it stumbles and peters out. Most topics of conversation seem dangerous.
Even so, Caitlyn tries to make an effort. Two of the most important people in her life are there, and she wants at least the semblance of a normal meal before the day properly begins and everything inevitably becomes complicated. But what little conversation there is seems to get pulled into the void at the head of the table where Cassandra used to sit.
Caitlyn feels relieved when the food gets brought out – eating makes a decent cover for awkwardness – but then there’s a sharp inhalation from Vi. It’s a little sound, barely audible, but it’s there and it feels wrong. Caitlyn’s head whips around to see that all the colour has drained from Vi’s face. Her hands are gripping the arms of her chair so tightly that her knuckles have gone white and Caitlyn can hear the wood creak under the pressure.
“Vi?” Caitlyn says gently.
“No. No no no no,” Vi whimpers. “No no no no.” Caitlyn gets the strong impression that Vi doesn’t know that she’s speaking – nothing about the other girl suggests that she’s aware of where she is at all.
She moves to put a reassuring hand on the other woman’s shoulder, but there’s a blur of motion and suddenly Vi’s standing upright and the chair she’d been sitting on has slammed backwards and toppled over. Vi’s fists are clenched and her head is tilted downwards, as though she’s bracing herself against a strong wind. Everything about her screams tension, and Caitlyn doesn’t know why, doesn’t know what’s wrong, doesn’t know how to make it right.
So she tries to meet Vi’s eyes, even though they’re focused on some nightmare rather than here and now. “Vi?” Caitlyn says again, as though she’s speaking to a frightened animal. “I’m here, Vi. It’s okay.”
Vi shudders at the sound of her voice, and her eyes scrunch up tight as though she’s trying to shut out the world and everything in it. Her lips move, spelling out something that Caitlyn can’t quite catch. Her hand flies upwards to cover her mouth as she convulses – clearly, she’s trying not to vomit.
Carefully, Caitlyn pushes herself to her feet. She steps around Vi’s fallen chair. She’s careful to signal her movements as loudly as she can. She doesn’t want to take Vi by surprise, but then again Vi seems so out of it that it’s almost impossible that she won’t be. “Vi. Listen to me. Wherever you are – I’m here with you.”
One of Vi’s eyelids slides open. Just a crack. Just enough for her to see Caitlyn – to verify, Caitlyn thinks, that she’s actually there. Then, suddenly Caitlyn is engulfed in a hug that makes her injured ribs creak. She can’t help but grunt and then, as quickly as it had started, the hug is over as Vi steps away. “Shit. You’re hurt. I – fuck, I forgot. I’m sorry. I-“
Caitlyn puts a hand on Vi’s shoulder, a couple of fingers curling up to rest against her neck. Instantly Vi becomes still. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Are you okay?”
“Fuck. I’m…” Vi takes a deep breath. Caitlyn can feel the other woman’s pulse beneath her fingertips. “I’m pretty sure I’m ten kinds of fucked, to be honest.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Caitlyn tries to make it clear that she’d be fine with it if Vi doesn’t.
Vi shifts where she stands – not much, but enough to indicate that she’d rather Caitlyn move her hand. Caitlyn does, letting it drop down by her side. She ignores the faint tingling sensation in her fingertips.
Without looking, Vi hooks her foot under the fallen chair and flips it upright again. She leans against the back. There is a pause that lasts just long enough for Caitlyn to think that Vi isn’t going to talk, but then there’s an explosive sigh and suddenly it looks as though the chair is the only thing keeping Vi upright as all energy leaves her. “Yesterday. When she – the dish. With the lid. Before she brought you in. I thought, I thought she – you’d be amazed at how many horrors you can squeeze under one of those dish covers.”
“Oh.” Caitlyn had heard them talking before she’d been brought in, but she hadn’t actually seen anything. “When she said she paid me a visit, you thought that she-“
“Don’t,” Vi says sharply. “Yeah. I – I think that’s when I lost her. When I thought that she was – that she might be the kind of person who – that she had-“
“You lost her a long time ago.” She knows it sounds harsh – it is harsh – but it’s also something that Vi needs to understand.
“No. I thought she might be the kind of person who could hurt you. She could see it. She knew. I lost her then. Powder – when she was younger, it wouldn’t even have occurred to me that she could hurt someone. Even if the things she made worked. I never would have thought that she could do it. Not like that, I mean. You heard her. ‘Maybe you could love me like you used to’. That... wasn’t ever going to happen. Not after that.”
“She had you tied up. You and the man who raised her since you were put in prison. You were - are the two most important people in her life. If she could do that, what do you think she could do to a stranger?”
Vi shakes her head. “It sounds logical when you say it, but real life doesn’t work like that, it’s complicated and messy. It sounds reasonable right up until it’s me and her, and then it all breaks down. Everything was fucked the moment I thought she might be the person that you’ve been telling me she is.”
“She is that person. She killed people before Silco. You know that. You know what happened to Marcus, to the wardens. Just because she did it from a distance, because it wasn’t personal, doesn’t mean that she isn’t a murderer.”
“So that’s it, then?” Vi says. She sounds unspeakably tired. Her eyes close as she speaks – perhaps because she doesn’t have the energy to keep them open, or perhaps because she just doesn’t want to look at Caitlyn. “Done and dusted? She’s done some things and so there’s no chance of things getting better?”
“She killed my mother.” Caitlyn hadn’t intended to say that, but it spills out of her and leave acid lingering on her tongue. The words hang heavy in the air. “She has to pay for that.”
Vi doesn’t open her eyes. She seems instead to shrink deeper into herself, as though she can burrow into her hoodie and vanish entirely. “She became that. The kind of person who does those things. She was made into that. I made her into that. Me and Silco and – she is what we made her. If we damn her for what she did then I’m damned too. If she can’t change, if she can’t,” Vi lips curve into something thin and humourless that could only technically be called a smile, “then I’m so many kinds of fucked that people will have to come up with new numbers for how fucked I am.”
Caitlyn chooses her next words carefully, aware that there is a very real chance that they might be the most important words she has ever said. “You aren’t the same as her. You aren’t – you don’t have it in you to do the things that she does.”
Only then do Vi’s eyes open, shooting her an incredulous look. “I don’t know who you’re talking to, Cupcake, ‘cause it isn’t me. Or maybe you’re forgetting that the only reason we met is because I beat a guy so badly that he couldn’t talk to you.”
“You didn’t kill him.”
“I would have. For the things he’s done, for who he works for. I would have. People stopped me.”
“Don’t you see the difference, though? He was Silco’s muscle. He spent years doing Silco’s dirty work in Zaun. Can’t you see the difference between someone like that and the Council?”
“I don’t think you’re going to like my answer.”
Caitlyn stiffens at that as dread pools in her stomach. “What? Why?”
“You’ve barely seen Zaun. You’ve spent your life in your big fancy house in your big fancy city. The bits of Zaun you’ve seen are the bits that Silco made. You don’t know what it was like before. You don’t remember the last time that there was a rebellion, the last time that we wanted to be free. You didn’t see the smoke that covered the sky. It was like the air was on fire. I was there. You asked me about my parents once. I lost them there. When I found them again, when I – the enforcers saw me. A little girl crying next to – a little girl who had no – my childhood died that day, with them. The enforcers saw me next to my dead mom and they did nothing. They just walked away.” Vi looks at Caitlyn then, but her eyes are focused on ghosts. “The difference between the Council and Silco is that he got his hands dirty. He wanted change.”
“I remember the rebellion.”
Vi and Caitlyn both jump, turning to look at Doctor Kiramman. “I forgot he was here,” Vi murmurs.
“So did I.”
Doctor Kiramman smiles thinly. “Sorry to disturb you. You seemed busy.”
In the moment Caitlyn is struck by how surreal this all is. They’d come for breakfast, they’d all sat around the table, and then Vi had had a panic attack and suddenly the world had shrunk down to just the pair of them. All the time they’d been talking, he’d been sitting there. “You were saying something about the rebellion.”
“I remember the enforcers that came back afterwards. I treated many of them. I’ve seen their scars. Some of them died on my operating table. Some of them died long before that, before they could even get to me. I know they must have seemed like an army. Like a tide that swept in and swept out and left the dead behind. But they were just people. The same as those on your side. All they wanted was to keep us safe. And they did. From what you’ve said and from what I’ve heard, I don’t think the same can be said for Silco’s men.”
Vi shook her head. “No. Caitlyn wants to protect people. She’s the only one of them I’ve met who does. To the rest of them it’s just a job that lets them hit people sometimes. It’s just money. To the rest of us below, it’s survival.”
“You sound like you agree with him.” Although Caitlyn’s voice is soft and quiet, it stings her throat like acid. “Like you agree with Silco.”
“I hate Shimmer. I hate what he did to Zaun. What he turned people into.” In that moment, she knows that both of them are remembering Huck, a tumour growing out of his head. Huck, who had betrayed Vi to Silco for the chance at more Shimmer. “It’s not my world down there anymore. I’m just saying that, to Pow – Ji – my sister, there’s not a lot of difference.”
“I don’t care what she thinks,” Caitlyn says fiercely. “I asked if you can see the difference.”
“I know there is one. Half the Council was incompetent. You know that. The other half did their best. So did Silco. The difference is the way they do things.”
“Exactly. Exactly. You aren’t her. You aren’t the same.”
“It’d be nice to believe that.” Vi holds up a hand to forestall the inevitable protest. “Stow it, Cupcake. I’m not going to have this argument with you. Not now. Now’s the time for breakfast.”
They sit. Although none of them have much of an appetite, they eat. Caitlyn seethes gently, wanting to let Vi know that she isn’t a monster but not sure how to make her believe it. Vi acts as though the food in front of her is her entire world and feels like guilt is eating her alive. Caitlyn’s father watches them both, but says nothing.
At least, he doesn’t say anything immediately. It is only after the silence has dragged on for so long that it’s turned into an almost tangible thing that threatens to strangle all three of them that he speaks. “Violet, have you ever thought about being a bodyguard?”
“Vi,” Vi says automatically, because hearing her full name come from this strange man that she barely knows feels wrong. Then she frowns as she processes the rest of what he’d said. “What? A bodyguard?”
“It will take some time for my daughter to heal. I could find someone to help keep her safe in the meantime, but it seems unlikely to me that I’ll be able to find someone who would make her safety as much of a… priority as you.”
“She’d be safer if I wasn’t here. If I got as far from her as possible.”
Caitlyn opens her mouth to protest, but he gets there just before her. “And yet here you are.”
“Here I am,” Vi echoes. “I did say I was all kinds of fucked up.” Belatedly, she realises who she’s talking to. With a glance at Caitlyn, she adds “Sir.”
“Call me Charles,” he says with a smile that says that he knows that Vi is only trying to be polite for Caitlyn’s sake.
“Charles,” Vi says slowly. “Do all the people in your family have names that begin with the letter C?”
Caitlyn laughs at that. It’s a short laugh – little more than an amused huff – but Vi answers it with a bright smile. “Most of us do.”
“A stipend can be arranged,” Charles continues.
“That’s not – I don’t-“
Charles holds up a hand. “I’m not suggesting that you need the money. This isn’t a pity position, Violet. Vi. You might be the only person that my daughter would accept.”
“I’m not sure she needs a bodyguard in the first place. She’s lethal with that crutch.”
Caitlyn winces. “Sorry about that.”
“Nevertheless, my daughter’s safety is important to me. As it is to you, I think. I hope you’ll accept.”
“You did just see me freak out over food being brought in though, yeah?”
“I did.”
“And you still want me to take the job?”
“I do.”
Vi shakes her head ruefully. “There’s something wrong with this family.”
“That isn’t a no.”
“Guess I’m not the only one who’s a little fucked up.” Vi shrugs. “’Sides, it isn’t like I’ve got anywhere else to go.” Caitlyn puts a hand on Vi’s arm in a silent gesture of thanks.
At that moment, a servant enters the room. “Sir? Lady Medarda is here to see you.”
Caitlyn frowns. “Mel?” She has a sudden sense of vertigo. Of course Mel has visited here before – it isn’t unusual for one Councillor to visit another – but Mel is dead. She isn’t going to be visiting anywhere.
“Lady Ambessa Medarda,” the servant clarifies.
Oh. Caitlyn has heard rumours of her arrival – Mel’s mother, the warlord. She hasn’t met her directly, but she’s heard stories. She wonders what she wants, given that it is somehow still early in the morning.
“Clear the table. Keep her waiting until everything’s been tidied away. Don’t bring out a chair for her,” Charles says decisively. “She won’t be staying long.”
“Do you know what she’s here for?”
“I can guess,” Charles replies grimly.
“Do I have to stand behind Caitlyn and look menacing?” Vi says.
“You can stay sitting and do that just fine,” Caitlyn replies.
“Thanks. I think.”
There is a flurry of activity as the table is cleared. Vi feels uncomfortable – politics isn’t her world. She would feel better if the servants would let her help, but when she tries they just look at her as though she’s grown a second head. So instead she just sits and tries to think menacing thoughts.
Then, after what feels like a small age, Ambessa is shown in. She’s a big woman, muscular enough to show up Sevika. There are a smattering of scars across her face and arms. She is tailed by a large man with an axe who is almost certainly a bodyguard, even though it looks like Ambessa is more than capable of taking care of herself.
“Lady Medarda,” Charles says tersely.
“Doctor,” she says with a slight inclination of her head. She looks at Caitlyn. “Councillor.”
“I’m not on the council,” Caitlyn says.
“No? Your mother is dead, child. I know your laws. You stand to inherit.”
“There’s time for that later,” Charles says, pulling attention back to him. “What do you want?”
“My daughter is dead.” The words hang heavily in the air. Ambessa lets them dangle there for a few seconds, knowing the effect they have on her audience, before she speaks again. “I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”
“We’re going to catch her killer,” Caitlyn says with a firmness that she doesn’t really feel. At her words, Ambessa’s attention snaps to her. Caitlyn looks back coolly, as though she has to deal with people like her all the time.
“You know who it is?”
“An anarchist called Jinx,” Caitlyn says. She doesn’t look at Vi as she speaks – she can’t afford to, because she knows if she does then she won’t be able to say this at all. Even so, she’s aware of the weight of Vi’s gaze. “She wanted to sabotage the talks between Piltover and Zaun. She killed Silco, then she used stolen hextech technology to destroy the council.”
“So you’re saying that she’s a lone individual, working by herself.” Ambessa seems surprised by this.
“Yes.”
“Then why is it,” Ambessa says slowly, with a smile like a lion drawing in on its prey, “that I have been told that Jinx is Silco’s right hand assassin?”
“She was. Now she’s not.”
“And you expect me to believe that-“
“You can believe what you like,” Vi says. Although she hasn’t raised her voice, it has the force of a whiplash. “Caitlyn’s told you what happened and she’s told you what’s going to happen next. If you want to get in the way, then there’s going to be a problem.”
Ambessa gives her an appraising look. It’s the first time that she’s paid any attention to Vi since she walked into the room. “I can have troops here by tomorrow, if the hexgates are still active. I can have people on the ground in Zaun by the end of the day. They’ll find the anarchist.”
“You’re talking about an invasion,” Caitlyn says, eyes narrowing.
“Well, yes.” Ambessa seems surprised that this was even in question. “Your enforcers have no leadership, and half of them were killed in the explosion on the bridge. You don’t have the manpower to find Jinx. Especially if she isn’t working alone.” Her tone suggested that she would rather drop the ‘if’.
“If you invade, everyone in the Undercity will fight you. You’ll make Jinx into a hero. As it stands, they want to be left alone to deal with their own problems – right now, Jinx is one of those problems. That’ll change the moment you send soldiers in.”
“By the time they resist the soldiers will already be there. Whether you like it or not, the attack on the council was an act of war. If you do nothing, there will be others.”
“There’s been enough violence,” Charles said. His hands are clenched on the table in front of him, belying his words. “If we can talk, then we should.”
“What makes you think you can? You tried, and my daughter was killed. Your wife, your mother, was killed.”
“No one’s hiding Jinx,” Vi says. “No one would dare. Not after this. If we go about this right, we can work with the Zaunites to find her and bring her in. If there’s a war then things will escalate out of hand.”
Ambessa looks at Vi again, as though she’s trying to work her out. Clearly she’d come in here prepared to deal with Charles and Caitlyn, but she hadn’t been prepared for Vi. Then she turns to Caitlyn. “You won’t allow me to bring in troops, I take it.”
“No. And if you try, they won’t make it to Zaun.” Caitlyn leans forwards, steepling her fingers. The gesture reminds her of Silco – and, judging by the slight hitch in Vi’s breathing next to her, she knows that it’s the same for Vi – but she has to be intimidating. Even tied to a chair, Silco had been perhaps the most intimidating person she’s ever met. Given that she can’t stand unaided, this is the best she can do. “The wardens are mine. They’ll follow me. I’m one of them. And, as you say, I’m also a councillor. If you want a war, a war can be arranged.”
Ambessa holds her gaze for a long moment. Then the other woman’s lips quirk into a small smile and Caitlyn wonders if she’s going to call her bluff. She wonders if she can dare let it be a bluff – Noxian soldiers in Zaun would be bad for everybody.
But all Ambessa says is “I look forward to following your career, Councillor.” She gives a sharp nod to her bodyguard, and then they sweep out.
As the door clicks shut, Vi exhales loudly and says “Fuck, Cupcake, when did you get so scary?” at the same time that Caitlyn reaches out and puts a hand on Vi’s arm and says “I’m sorry.”
It takes Vi a couple of seconds to process what Caitlyn said. She frowns. “What? What for?”
“For making Silco into a martyr and Jinx into a demon.”
“Oh. That.” Vi shrugs, trying to pass it off as though its nothing, but she also leans away from Caitlyn. Caitlyn doesn’t think that Vi’s even aware that she’s doing it, but nevertheless she removes her hand. “Silco’s people will spin it that way anyway. There’s no love lost between Sevika and Jinx. If she can get everything she wants by handing over Jinx, then she’ll do it.”
“Still. I’m sorry. It feels…” she pauses, searching for an appropriate word, but all she can find is “Wrong.”
“Yeah. Well. Anyway.” Vi looks away, obviously uncomfortable.
“You did well,” Charles interjects. “Both of you. Cassandra would be proud.”
Something inside Caitlyn breaks, just a little bit. “There should be a memorial. For her. For everyone. So that we can show them – so that we can…”
“Good idea, Caitlyn,” Vi says gently, and Caitlyn clings to her words like they’re some kind of anchor.
~*~
As it turns out, planning a memorial takes a lot of work. Charles helps, and it turns out that Cassandra had a staff that used to help her with stuff like this, but it still takes a lot of work. Thankfully, a lot of it is mind-numbing drudgery that Caitlyn can focus on with such single-minded intensity that she can ignore everything else.
For Vi’s part, she mostly just there. Sometimes Caitlyn asks her opinion, and she gives it as though she actually has one and isn’t just picking a response more or less at random. She thinks that she might feel totally worthless if it wasn’t for the fact that, every now and then, Caitlyn looks at her. She is almost totally sure that Caitlyn doesn’t know she’s doing it, but every now and then she looks over at Vi as though she’s making sure that she’s still there and, upon finding out that she is, Caitlyn smiles.
And then, suddenly, the day is over. There’s nothing more to be done. At least not right then.
“So,” Vi says, a smile playing around her lips, “about the sleeping arrangements.”
Caitlyn frowns. “I’m not going to sleep in a chair again, if that’s what you’re wondering. You can have your own bed.”
“How am I supposed to guard your body if you’re in a different room? I’m trying to take this job seriously, which means I’ve got to be with you every waking moment.”
Caitlyn’s smile is dazzling. “You know that there’s no such thing as a waking moment when you’re asleep, right?”
“You know what I meant. I can move a bed into your room if you want to keep it all to yourself. Although I’ve gotta say, you don’t have to worry about me kicking you out of bed.”
Caitlyn looks at her steadily for a long moment. “Two beds is fine.”
Vi gives her a triumphant grin. “Two beds it is.”
~*~
It’s later, it’s dark, and Caitlyn can’t sleep. She’d like to say that it’s because her head is still spinning from everything that needs to be done to prepare for a memorial – and, in fact, that’s exactly what she would say if someone asked her why she was still awake. But if she’s truthful, even if only to herself, she might admit that the real reason she can’t sleep is because her ears are straining to listen to the Vi’s breathing. She suspects that the other woman is trying to be quiet for her benefit but, after having spent the last night listening to Vi as she slept, Caitlyn finds the silence to be almost unbearably loud. She’d spent most of the day filling her head with mindless minutiae, but now that she’s quiet and still everything that she’d tried to forget is creeping in.
“A giant bird that blots out the sun,” Caitlyn says quietly, “and rains down flaming feathers on everyone below.”
Although she can’t see it, she can hear the smile in Vi’s voice as she responds. “A huge snake that knocks down buildings with a flick of its tail. Its poison dissolves you from the inside out.” Vi makes a juddery hissing sound.
Caitlyn laughs. “You really played this game as children?”
“Uh huh.”
“No wonder you have nightmares,” Caitlyn says. “A creature that looks like a building. Its eyes are windows, the carpet its tongue. It moves from place to place, always looking like somewhere safe just when you need it until you walk in and it swallows you whole.”
“You’re good at this.”
“It’s oddly relaxing. These things are less horrifying than the things in my head.” She’d meant it as a sort of light hearted joke, but as soon as the words are out in the open she wonders how she could ever have thought it was humorous at all.
“Yeah. I get that.” There is something in Vi’s voice, a sort of quiet resignation, that makes Caitlyn realise that Vi knows exactly what she’s talking about and that that’s why she started playing the game in the first place. Her heart breaks at the thought of a young Vi with thoughts like that in her head. There’s a rustling sound and Caitlyn knows, without having to look, that Vi’s propped herself up on one arm to look at her. “Anyway. What do you want to do tomorrow?”
“See Jayce,” Caitlyn replies with a speed that surprises herself, given that she hadn’t been consciously thinking about that at all. “If he’s awake.”
“You’re close, you and him?”
Caitlyn makes an affirmative hum. “He was my tutor when I was younger.”
“What? Mister Man of Progress?”
“This was before all of that. He was just Jayce then.”
“I robbed him once, you know. A long time ago. Didn’t know it at the time, but only one person keeps little blue explosive stones around.”
Caitlyn sits up. “That was you? I was right outside the door when he broke it down.”
“Shit, really? Were you hurt? There was an explosion.”
“I was fine. Not a scratch.” Caitlyn tries to find Vi, eyes straining in the dark. “I wish I could have met you then.”
“D’you normally want to meet the people who rob your teachers?” Despite her words, Caitlyn can tell that Vi’s pleased.
“I don’t have a lot of experience with it. Shockingly.”
“You’d probably have shot me.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“I guess not. You’re far too sweet.”
“Shut up,” Caitlyn says fondly.
There’s a sigh in the dark. “You know, I can’t even count how many hours I’ve spent obsessing over that day. There are so many things that could have gone differently. Things that could have gone better. I thought about it all the time, when I was in prison.”
“You were just a child. I don’t know exactly what happened, but you can’t dwell on that sort of thing. You’ve got to move on.” Caitlyn knows that she’s echoing what her father had said to her yesterday, and that she hadn’t been able to accept it herself. But she also knows that she has to try.
“I don’t have a future, Caitlyn. All I’ve got is my past.”
“If you didn’t have a future then you wouldn’t be here,” Caitlyn says in what she hopes is a reasonable tone instead of like someone who’s just been punched in the gut, which is how she feels.
“I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
“Then get out. Leave the city, like you promised Jinx. Just leave.”
After that there’s a silence that goes on for such a long time that Caitlyn begins to wonder if Vi has taken her at her word. It goes on so long that Caitlyn wants to say that she didn’t mean it, that she doesn’t want Vi to go – but Vi hasn’t responded to kindness and acceptance, and she isn’t the only one here who’s in pain. Caitlyn can’t carry them both. She knows that it isn’t fair to lash out, but then again none of this has ever been fair.
Then Vi speaks. Her voice is level and steady and so totally devoid of emotion that it might as well be nothing more than the sound of the wind. “Do you want me to go?”
“Of course not. I want… I want you to want to be here.” Caitlyn’s voice cracks just slightly on the last few words, but she closes her eyes and ploughs on anyway. “I don’t have that many people left.”
She regrets her words as soon as she says it, because she knows that Vi tends to skate over emotions like that right up until they swallow her whole. But then there’s a voice in the dark right next to her head. “Come on. Scoot over.”
Caitlyn flails in surprise and lets out an undignified yelp that almost covers Vi’s laugh. “Gods, Vi! Can’t you make some sound while you move?”
“And spoil the fun? No chance. Now come on and budge over.”
“Why?” Caitlyn asks, her voice thick with suspicion.
“Because I’ve been reliably told that I’m good at supporting people, and clambering all over you in the dark while you’ve got a broken leg seems like a bad idea.”
In her head, Caitlyn runs through what Vi had said to try and work out if there was an actual answer in there somewhere. She decides that there isn’t, but also that she doesn’t really care. The fact that Vi had been in here somewhere, just out of sight in the darkness, had been enough to drive her crazy.
So she moves over, and lets Vi position her. In the end she’s tucked into the crook of Vi’s arm. She can feel the other woman’s heartbeat. One of Vi’s hands is pressing against Caitlyn’s elbow as though she can keep her pressed to herself - the other hand, to Caitlyn’s intense surprise, is threaded through her hair and is massaging her scalp.
“Vi?”
“Mhm?”
“What are you doing?”
“What? Oh.” Vi’s hand stills, and Caitlyn wonders why she had to go and say anything at all. “Sorry. Old habits.”
For a moment Caitlyn has no idea what she’s talking about, and then she realises that she’s talking about the bed she used to share with Powder all those years ago and suddenly she thinks that she might cry.
Vi breathes out slowly. Caitlyn feels she air shift her hair and send shivers down her spine. “You might have noticed that I don’t exactly know what I’m doing.”
Caitlyn hadn’t actually noticed anything of the sort. She frowns. “Vi?”
“What now?”
“Have you never done this before?”
“What, sleeping? I try to do it every night. Of course, I’m not always successful, but-“
“Not that.” Caitlyn moves her hands in a gesture that is much more eloquent than anything she can say. It encompasses her and Vi and the whole world. She hopes that Vi can see it in the dark. She hopes that she understands. “This.”
There’s another long pause. Then Vi says, so quietly that Caitlyn probably wouldn’t have heard it if she wasn’t just a few inches away, “I never really had a chance.”
Caitlyn slowly and deliberately takes Vi’s free hand, opens it and holds it, lacing their fingers together. “Something to work on. For the future.”
“For the future. Yes.”