Chapter Text
Caitlyn Kiramman is fidgeting. Properly. Wringing her hands together, shuffling from side to side, bringing her hand up only to let it drop again. Chewing on her bottom lip, digging her nails into her palms until they form stinging crescents.
Kirammans, as a rule, do not fidget. They hold themselves with pride, chin up, shoulders pulled back, back ramrod straight. They don’t fidget. Her mother would be chiding her if she saw the state of her just then. What would the people think?
She’s wearing all black, her hair is done up neatly, not a speck of dust to be found on well-tailored clothes. Her eye is still covered with bandages, time not so far beyond the loss of it to allow her the comfort of an eyepatch. Caitlyn looks, to the untrained eye, absolutely impeccable.
And yet, she dreads the simple movement of lifting her hand to knock on the solid wooden doors in front of her. Has in fact debated no less than five times simply turning on her heels and taking her leave. The cowards way out.
She takes a deep breath, and then another, the way her father taught her when she was still young and prone to bouts of frustration. The way her mother taught her with a rifle in her hands.
Her eye closes and she reminds herself that she has to do this, for her own sake and for— She lifts her hand again, brings slightly bruised knuckles against the smooth surface and knocks, three solid raps that bely the dread churning in her guts. She should’ve planned out what she was going to say.
A moment passes. And another. She forces her lungs to keep inflating and deflating rhythmically, too aware of every passing breath.
The door opens. Caitlyn looks into the red rimmed eyes of a woman she knows far too little, for the loss they share. Ximena Talis looks back at her, mouth slightly slack in surprise, and she opens her arms before a single word is spoken between them. Anything she might have planned, a genuine apology, solemn condolences, the stoic professionalism she still tries to wear like the cloak she's long since hung up, it all vanishes the second she steps into the embrace.
Maybe she doesn’t deserve this, the easy acceptance, the tender care of a mother, but she can’t bring herself not to fall into it. Hugs the woman, the mother of what was, what had been in all ways that mattered except for his name, her brother. Hugs her tightly, with none of the dignity of a Kiramman but all of the grief of a little sister, right there in the doorway.
She’s sure she’s crying, or they both are, but it feels strangely cathartic to finally have someone who understands. They expected her to grieve for her mother, but everyone seemed to forget about Jayce. And Viktor. She can’t think about it too much.
Ximena ushers her into the house, the home, when they finally manage to pull apart. Wiping their eyes with lopsided smiles, wobbly and wrong, ill-fitting. Caitlyn sits in the kitchen of a house she’s only been in a handful of times and tries to imagine her brother there. Knows he must’ve hit his head on the low hanging cabinets at least once and her smile feels less painted on than it did before.
She’d never been close to the woman currently making tea for the two of them, her hands steady even if Caitlyn can still see tears shining on her cheeks. It’s an awful feeling, knowing the only bond they share is the glaring void in the room. He should be here to see this. All of it.
Caitlyn thanks the woman with a sincerity that comes easily, in this space, takes a sip and tries not to think about her mother bringing her tea when she was younger. When their conversations didn’t end in arguments, going to bed angry. When her choices weren’t yet questioned and critiqued. When she could still see pride shining in her mother’s eyes.
She drums her fingers on the table, smooths her pointer over the small scratches, wonders if they’re the result of some childhood science project. Almost asks, before she remembers herself. Sitting here in the silence, both of them sipping their tea and steeping in this quiet understanding makes it so easy to expect the door to open, for him to step through it.
It’s been a couple of weeks and before that he was gone for months, she’d already been grieving for him and still. Sometimes, on walks through the slowly, painfully slowly healing city, she still found herself taking the familiar path to his workshop. Lost in thought, simply walking where her feet took her, until she stood in front of the door and suddenly couldn’t breathe.
Ximena clears her throat quietly and Caitlyn looks up, caught out, even if the woman just smiles sadly.
“I’m glad you’ve come to see me. I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while.”
Caitlyn swallows another sip of tea, feels relieved when it burns her tongue a little. Nods for the woman to continue.
“I’m so terribly sorry about your mother, sweet girl.”
It strikes her like a blow, throat constricting as she tries to think of something to say, tries not to let the words wash away the carefully built walls. A sandcastle around her grief, so easily swept away by currents beyond her control.
Caitlyn smiles, nods, clenches her hand around the cup hard enough the warm porcelain starts to burn her palm and uses the ache to ground herself.
Flinches away, just slightly, when Ximena pries her hand free and looks at her with the tired exasperation only a mother could wear so perfectly. She squeezes Caitlyn’s hand and Caitlyn feels vaguely guilty. Vaguely like the child she hasn’t been in too long.
“Thank you.”
Her voice comes out raspy and she takes another sip to put out the flickering flame of anguish always residing in her stomach now, even months after the fact.
“I’m sorry.”
Steadier, looking up at the mother of her brother, the closest thing she has to him, now that he’s gone. Ximena just shakes her head, squeezes her hand a little tighter.
“There’s nothing you could’ve done. You’ve given plenty, Caitlyn. I know if you could’ve you’d have given even more but I promise you, it’s enough.”
Her eyes linger on the bandage half-hidden behind Caitlyn’s hair. The younger woman ducks her head. Not in shame but in uncertainty. Guilt.
“He’d be proud of you.”
It’s only the cup still in her hand that stops her from bringing her fingers to her lips to smother the surprised sob trying to worm its way out of her throat. Scrambling up her lungs and digging its talons into her insides and dragging up all that’s ugly and rotten inside her. All the mistakes she made, the awful crimes she could never undo. She shakes her head, has to look away.
Ximena makes a quiet noise, gets up from her seat opposite her to instead sit next to her. Sits on Caitlyns good side so the woman can still see her out of the corner of her eyes. Can see that she’s not looking at her, is simply giving her quiet support. A mother above all. Caitlyn feels sick.
“He came home, you know? He didn’t explain where he went all those months, but I know it must’ve been awful. I’ve never seen the haunted look in his eyes before. I really thought I knew all the faces my boy could make, but that one I wish I’d never had to see. I’m glad he came home, of course. The relief, knowing he was alive.”
Her voice is solemn and Caitlyn listens, wipes almost angrily at the tears still dripping down her chin.
“He didn’t explain but he didn’t have to. He only came to me to tell me I needed to leave. That he had arranged for transport to get me to safety. You should’ve seen his face when I told him I was staying. He’s grown into such a gentle man, so sure of himself and still wearing his heart on his sleeve. I half expected him to pick me up and carry me away himself if he had to.”
Ximena laughs quietly, a wet sound and Caitlyn squeezes her hand again, both of their hands clammy and too tightly clasped. Like they’re both trying not to drown, too cold and soaked to the bone in waves of this loss.
“It took hours to convince him that I wouldn’t be leaving my city, or my son, while he was staying to defend it. I think he would have argued even longer if time hadn’t been running out. He made me seek shelter, at least. Much as I would’ve liked to fight, well. I’m not a soldier. Though I suppose that didn’t make much of a difference in the end. Neither was he. Nor you.”
Caitlyn picks up her tea again, just to hold it. To let the fleeting warmth seep into her skin, hope it warms her trembling bones.
“He was proud of you. He’d talk about you all the time, back then. When you first made the decision to become an enforcer, against your parents’ wishes. My Jayce has always been a worrier, though. He told me he was glad your mother did her utmost to put you on safer duties and that he felt bad for being relieved about it. He worried but he also thought you were brave. He used to say you and your endless curiosity were the most annoying thing, but he had that twinkle in his eyes. I always felt regret for not making more of an effort to connect with you. He loved you dearly and it’s not difficult to see why.”
New tears prickle at Caitlyn’s cheeks and this time she has to laugh, quiet and disbelieving. She turns to the woman then, eyes wide and red rimmed and sees the same tender smile her brother wore like a sign of approval whenever he looked at her. Ximena was shorter, almost frail, eyes just as puffy as Caitlyn’s were, and they didn’t look that similar. But something about the way the woman holds herself, the kindness almost oozing out of her, the readiness to give comfort, to listen and help. The way she was trying to make Caitlyn feel better as though she hadn’t lost her child as much as Caitlyn lost her brother. It reminded her of him. Bittersweet, to know where Jayce had gotten his kind heart from.
“Thank you.”
Caitlyn repeats, shaky. She hasn’t felt truly steady since her mother died, but right now her feet were on uneven ground, and she was waiting for the fall, for it to break open and swallow her whole.
“Jayce is— he was a good man. A good friend. He was brilliant. I’m proud to have known him. I miss him. He should be here, should get to see all this.”
She’s rambling a little, but Ximena doesn’t interrupt her. A good mother, a good woman through and through.
“With him and Viktor gone, I don’t believe Hextech will carry on in any capacity. Their life’s work, everything they’ve spent years building, so thoroughly corrupted. I’m afraid no one will remember them. Him. Or if they do, they won’t do so kindly.”
Caitlyn admits the last part softly, a thought that has plagued her ever since she woke up in the hospital, Mel at her side, telling her they didn’t know where her brother had disappeared to. Telling her she knew he was gone because she couldn’t feel him anymore. Remembers feeling the same sharp pain she felt still, thinking about him. Thinking about their last interaction, when he had pulled her aside before the battle. The final stand. His eyes so much harder than she could ever remember them being.
Those same eyes softening for a split second before he hugged her, the same all-encompassing way his mother had done earlier. Had allowed them both that one moment of weakness to tell her to be careful. To stick to the plan, not go off on her own, because he knew her. The moment for her to tell him the same, because she knew him just as well.
He’d been there, carrying Vi all the way back to Piltover when they managed to get out of the community that had fallen apart like a dream in the early morning hours. Had been there, whenever he could, while Caitlyn tried to hide her fretting over Vi’s wounds. Had been her shoulder to lean against when the doctors finally assured her the woman would pull through. Had himself spent many hours keeping vigil at Vi’s bedside while Caitlyn was curled up next to her, allowing her to rest under his watchful gaze. Safe in the knowledge that nothing could touch them as long as he was there.
Jayce had been her brother in every way that mattered. Even if they didn’t always see eye to eye. She almost has to laugh at the irony.
“He was a good man.”
Ximena nods, smiles again, that soft, watery thing that breaks Caitlyn’s heart.
“He was.”
They don’t speak a lot after that. Just sit in companionable silence, both of them lost in their own memories, hands still tightly clasped together. Grief shared was still grief, but it didn’t pack the same bitter taste as the lonesome defeat that had started to touch every thought of him. Caitlyn barely realised how dark it has gotten outside until Ximena stands to turn on the lights, to wash their cups, her shoulders drawn back and chin up.
Caitlyn stands as well, both more and less unsure than before, an intruder in the home her brother grew up in. His mother turns to her and draws her into another hug, wordlessly, and the tension in her unspools a fraction.
“Don’t be a stranger, Caitlyn. You’re always welcome here.”
It’s a promise, one that she barely knows what to do with. So, she nods, squeezes her a little harder. Both of them taking comfort, selfishly, in being what the other had lost.
What a pair they made. A childless mother and a motherless child.
Caitlyn comes over for tea weekly after that.