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In the days after, everything hurts.
Vi is used to feeling like one giant bruise; years of experience in street brawls, Stillwater and fighting pits having done their work so that she barely even notices all her broken parts. She sprained her back from hitting the railing, the doctors tell her; please lay down and don’t exert yourself. Her arm will have to be in a cast for weeks; please keep it still and don’t perform physical labour. They don’t tell her how to keep her heart still; that’s not their speciality. Not that Vi listens to them anyway.
She doesn’t shy from the hurt, she welcomes it even. As fucked up as it is, hurting means she’s still alive. Going numb won’t help anybody; she’s been there and done that. And there’s work to be done.
After her tears have all been used up and dried on her cheeks, Vi helps carry the wounded to safety. Then she gets started on clearing the rubble. She just keeps going, without thinking about a bleeding hand slipping out from hers, or her sister’s last smile as she fell. She’ll scream and punch the walls later. At some point, even loss becomes exhausting.
She holds Caitlyn’s hand when she wakes up in the hospital, and the cracks in Vi’s heart mend a little bit when Caitlyn smiles like Vi was the best sight she could have woken up to. Then they break open again once Vi has to tell her about her eye, that the doctors weren’t able to save it. Caitlyn takes the news calmly, like she expected it, like Vi can’t see right through her mask to the hurt underneath. Vi doesn’t press her. Everyone grieves in their own way.
Everyone has lost someone. Mel has lost her own mother, yet the moment she breaks into tears happens when it becomes clear neither Jayce nor Viktor have been found in the ruins of the Hexgates. Vi sees enforcers breaking down side by side with Zaunites over the bodies of their loved ones, and maybe this is the thing that finally brings everyone together. It took the apocalypse to almost happen, but both sides now finally have something in common.
Vi finds Ekko staring at the ruins, and following his gaze she sees the volunteers dragging parts of a neon-coloured rocket launcher from the rubble. They throw it aside and it clangs against the ground; just an obstacle in their way to more potential survivors. Like the noise has shattered his last supporting pillar, Ekko collapses against her side and Vi holds him as his body shakes with sobs.
“There’s so much I still needed to tell her. I thought maybe we had time…”
“She knew, Ekko. I’m pretty sure she knew.”
“Did you get to tell her? Before…?”
“I think so.” Jinx knew what she meant to Vi. She had to . “I hope so.” They fought back to back again. Vi loved her. She said so with everything except those three words. “I…”
It turns out her tears weren’t all used up. It all comes crashing down over her then, and now they’re both leaning on each other, bleeding heart to bleeding heart. Vi thought she knew what hurt was, but she was wrong. The possibilities she got to see before the fall make it so much worse, like her brilliant, stupid little sister has been torn away from her a hundred times over.
It must be the same for Ekko. At least he is still here, even if he probably doesn’t want to be any more than Vi. A tiny little flash of joy sparks in her chest at that thought, lost in the ocean of grief.
There’s no reasoning why, that night, her feet take her back to The Last Drop. Her steps creak on floorboards she doesn’t recognize, the neon graffiti on the walls is washed and faded. Everything that made this place home is gone. As if to drive that point home, who looks up at her from behind the counter, having had the same reason-less idea, but Sevika, of all people.
They both stop in their tracks and glare at each other for a solid few seconds. Then Sevika scoffs, reaches behind the counter with her good arm and slides a bottle over to Vi. And Vi ignores the potential improvised weapon, pops it open and takes a long gulp, instead.
“Surprised you’re not up there with your topsider friends. Got nostalgic?”
“I could kick your ass again, if you really want it to feel like old times.”
“With that broken arm? Please, I don’t want to pummel you while you’re handicapped.”
“You’re fucking missing the same arm!”
“Like I said. Handicapped.”
For once though, neither of them is really in a mood to fight. They pass the night with terse comments and silence. At some point, Vi puts on an old record and just stares at the ceiling as long forgotten, familiar songs play in the background.
The next morning she leaves The Last Drop and goes back home.
Caitlyn looks up from her book as she enters the bedroom. The doctors have explicitly told her not to read, but apparently Vi’s girlfriend is even worse at following their orders than she is. The thought makes her grin unexpectedly (that or the girlfriend part; tough to say), and she hops onto the bed, snatching the book away from a protesting Caitlyn.
“I was worried when you didn’t come to bed last night. Where’d you go?”
Vi shrugs vaguely. It’s the kind of answer that would have driven the old Caitlyn mad. Now, as Vi lays her head on Caitlyn’s shoulder and Caitlyn threads long fingers through her hair, another question is more important.
“Are you alright?”
Vi hums against her skin. “Yeah.”
Somehow, in that moment, it’s not a lie.
The world keeps turning. As soon as she can walk again, Caitlyn formally steps down and the council is reestablished, this time with seats reserved for the Undercity. Sevika is one of them, and somehow that makes sense. Mel takes her leave, taking the remaining Noxian forces with her. Who knows where they’re going, but with them gone it’s like the last splinter has finally been drawn from a wound, and people start talking of healing.
And they do. Caitlyn starts wearing an eyepatch to hide her battle scar, and reluctantly takes it off when they’re alone and Vi asks her to. Caitlyn cries when she reaches up and misses Vi’s cheek; Caitlyn upends her desk with an angry scream when her one remaining eye can’t keep up with her busy brain. Vi kisses the scarred skin and tells her it’s beautiful. Vi wipes away the tears and promises her she’s still the more graceful of the two; Vi pulls the desk upright and holds her girlfriend until she stops cursing like a sailor and cuddles into Vi, instead. Caitlyn meets her eyes and her lips lift, she laughs, and Vi laughs with her.
Ekko invites them to the Firelights’ hideout, which is no longer hidden. Zaunites of all walks are marvelling at the tree when Vi and Caitlyn enter, and Ekko tells them proudly that he plans to create spaces like this elsewhere in the Undercity. None of them will live to see those trees grown, but that doesn’t feel like a loss; only like a promise. Caitlyn eagerly picks up on that thread and throws out her own ideas to augment Ekko’s, and Vi feels a smile lift her lips looking at them arguing.
When he thinks she’s not looking, Vi notices Little Man throwing a mournful look at the memorial, eyes catching on Powder’s face. She thinks that maybe he has lost more than she knows. Now, same as back when they were children - another life - Vi won’t let him get away with his secrets. Not if they’re hurting him. But for now, she joins him in looking at the memorial, and her cracked heart sings with the memory he has managed to keep alive down here.
It feels so wrong; to be happy. Jinx is dead, Vander is dead, Isha - that tiny little joyful spark Vi barely knew - is dead. Vi shouldn’t be able to feel happy. How can this feeling exist in her chest when so many parts of her have been torn away? How doesn’t she just collapse like the emotionless husks they battled at the Hexgates?
Vi struggles to find an answer. In this, like in so many things, Caitlyn helps her when she stumbles, supports her and helps her to work it out.
“You’re allowed to feel this way, Vi,” after Caitlyn catches her laughing about something silly and meaningless.
“You deserve this, Violet,” as Caitlyn’s lips trail a slow path down Vi’s body, leaving fire and want in their wake.
“You’re not selfish. You’re brave and kind and extraordinary, love; you’re the most selfless person I know, ” as they look across the water together, arms entwined and hips touching.
With time, Vi starts to believe it. The hurt doesn’t get any less, but neither do these moments of joy. The hole never closes completely, but neither does it become all she is. She won’t let it.
And one day, Caitlyn approaches her, biting her lip, stacks of papers and diagrams of the Hexgates under her arm.
“There’s something I have to show you, love.”