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Mel was keeping her hands busy. She was doing that a lot lately; tracing the outline of her desk, the rim of her glass, the markings on her skin in the mirror. As if she'd do it just one more time, and everything would fall into place. When she was younger, and her mother still alive, Ambessa had called them "restless hands". Mel had been adamant; they weren't restless, they were methodical.
Now, though, it seemed her method had fallen into madness.
She sat in the comfortable darkness of the empty meeting room. It was quiet, and far too late for any other councilors to bother her. Not even Sevika, who, judging by her eyebags, had been managing her own grief with a cocktail of whiskey and insomnia. Mel traced the familiar edges of the table, nursing her drink in her other hand. She sighed. She did that a lot lately too.
When she had first met Ekko, the boy genius who had worked alongside Jayce near the end of it all, he had been skittish around her. At first, she thought it may have to do with his Zaunite roots and her council position. She very quickly found out he had been the last one to see Jayce and Viktor still alive. Or... whatever Viktor was. He wouldn't give her details, even when she pressed. Whatever morbid curiosity lurked in Mel's mind wanted to hate the boy for that, but he had lost people too. He knew that knowing their fate would likely only make things worse.
Her methodical hands (definitely not restless, definitely not trying to find a replacement for the warm palms of Jayce's hands and the cool metal of Viktor's brace) now moved from the ridges of the table to the smooth ceramic of her mug. It was full of Noxian wine (which did not smell like her mother), emblazoned with the face of the Man of Progress. Her fingertips traced the circle, slowed at the small chip left on the rim.
She couldn't remember the last time she talked to Viktor. Had it been right before the bomb? A passing comment as he followed Jayce into this very room? A subtle smile to a man too weak to return it? A secret wordless reminder that she stood by him just as she stood by Jayce, that he too was more than an investment? And her last interaction with Jayce, right before he threw himself into the fight, knowing he'd have to kill his partner or die trying (or, in the end, both)... had she shown him enough love? Compassion?
Mel set down the mug now. She squeezed her eyes tight and tried to erase the hazy visions of them from her mind. Then, she stood and walked from the table to the large window overlooking the city and the sky. She used to do this with Jayce, when the council's meetings had been winding down and the others were filing out. They'd sit, preoccupied in some manufactured small talk, until the others had all left. Only then would she take his hand and pull him to the window to discuss their plans and dreams.
Now there was nothing to discuss as she stared up at the stars over her Piltover.