Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You might find it helpful to–”

“I’m here for Cait, alright?” Vi bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood. “Cait wanted me to come so I… I’m here, aren’t I? Isn’t that enough?”

The Doctor – Vi can't remember his name – hums in that god-awful way that makes her want to lean over and slam her fist into his face. 

This isn't worth it. Can't possibly be worth it. Therapy might be the topsiders’ answer for everything, but it certainly isn't how things were done in the undercity. The way Vi was brought up, if you had an issue, you punched it out. With someone else, with a wall – it didn’t fucking matter. That kind of physical exertion is the only way she knows how to deal with this buzzing anger that fizzes around inside of her.

And it's just that. Anger. At everything, at herself.

Just anger.

Nothing else.

“Well,” says the Doctor. Rafsa, that was his name. She remembers now. “It’s admirable that you’ve come for your partner, Violet, but this needs to be for you, as well.”

“Vi,” she corrects him, half-hearted. She doesn't care much what people call her anymore. Doesn't think she deserves to have that much of an opinion. “It’s Vi.”

“Vi.” Rafsa’s tone is careful, but Vi doesn't look up to see his expression. If one more person looks at her with pity in their eyes, she's going to lose her fucking mind. “If we can talk, the two of us, and make good progress, then that’s all this has to be. Three times a week, until the people who care about you are sure you aren’t a danger–”

“I would never hurt her.” Her eyes snap up to his, then, fire rising to her cheeks. “Never.”

Rafsa meets her glare with an even gaze. “A danger to yourself , Vi.”

Bile rises in her throat. She blinks furiously at the burning in her eyes. 

“This is important,” the Doctor says, lowering his voice now, leaning forward. Vi averts her gaze to her knees, digging her fingernails into the flesh of her palms. “I’ve discussed your situation, and treatment options, with Miss Kiramann at length. She’s open to the idea of admission into a more formal treatment centre, but we’re happy that, for now, if you participate in therapy–”

“She said that?” Vi’s own voice sounds foreign in her ears. Too raw, too transparent. “Cait said that?”

At that, Rafsa’s gaze softens. The sympathy makes Vi want to vomit. “Cait isn’t the enemy here, Violet– Vi , and neither am I. The path that you’re heading down… Well, it won’t lead anywhere good.” A pause. “I know you’ve lost a lot, and I know–”

“You know nothing,” she spits, chair scraping against the ground as she stands, suddenly, cheeks hot with rage. “You can fuck off, and so can Cait, if you think sticking me in a psych ward will solve anything when I’ve already…” She bites back the memories of Stillwater, of that miserable cell, the years wasted. “Get fucked, Doc. I’m done.”

***

Vi doesn't go straight home. How can she, when she knows exactly what's waiting for her there? The betrayal of the one person – the only person left, actually – that is supposed to care about her. It was Cait’s idea, throwing her in another cell? She supposes that's easier than having her mope around the house all day, drifting around like a fucking ghost, but why hadn’t she said anything sooner? Cait had pushed for the therapy like that’s all it was. Talking. That had been a bitter enough pill to swallow and, truthfully, Vi thought she’d be able to get away with the occasional grunt or nod. But the fact that this talking shit was actually a twisted little plan to get her institutionalised… 

Well. That hurts.

She goes to a bar instead. Then another. By the time she gets back to the house, she's drunk enough that she doesn't feel the sting of cold rain on her skin, or the sharp knife of Cait’s disapproval when she stumbles into their bedroom. 

“You’re drunk.” 

Cait hasn't gone to bed yet. She never does, on the increasingly frequent occasions that Vi comes home late. She's sitting in the armchair by the fire, legs tucked up underneath her as she closes the book she's reading and sets it on the table beside her. 

“You’re… observant.”

It took her a moment to find the right word, but Vi feels a little smug that she did actually manage to sound eloquent. That’s right. Fuck you. Fuck you and your fancy doctor and your ability to just… just… brush things under the fucking rug when you don’t want to…

“Vi,” Cait says, flatly. “You are swaying on your feet. Could you sit down?”

With a huff, she sinks into the chair opposite, kicking off her shoes. For a moment, neither of them say anything. Vi picks at the skin of her fingernails, feeling the weight of Cait’s eyes on her but still not meeting her gaze. 

Finally, Cait breaks the silence. “You went to therapy, then.”

Vi grunts. 

Cait exhales. Her voice is soft. “I’m proud of you for going.”

“Yeah, well.” Vi clears her throat. “Don’t be too proud. I’m not going back.”

Cait, to her credit, doesn't react. Vi kind of hates that about her. Where Vi is quick to fly off the handle, Cait has learned to be slower in her anger. She still feels it, Vi can tell, but Cait is more deliberate in her words and actions these days. Vi doesn't know how she could have the patience, the virtue, to be like that. And she hates her for being a better person than she is. She resents that they could have gone through all that and Cait could still have come out the other side still, almost entirely, in one piece. Mentally, at least.

How the fuck is that possible?

A shuffle of fabric, and for a moment, Vi thinks Cait is standing up and moving across the room towards her. But she isn't. Vi glances up and sees Cait has shifted, her body language more open, legs uncrossed and leaning forward on her knees, her gaze fixed on Vi.

Still, Cait says nothing.

Fine, thinks Vi. I'll bite.

“You’re not locking me up, Cait.” She fixes her unsteady gaze on her girlfriend. “I won’t go through that again.”

“Oh, Vi.” Cait says her name like a sigh. She stands, suddenly, and crosses the space between them, dropping to her knees in front of Vi. “I’m sorry. That’s not – locking you up, that isn’t at all what…”

“Don’t try and sell me fancy rehab as anything other than prison, Cait,” croaks Vi. “I’m not fucking going.”

Cait drops her face to Vi’s knee, kisses it lightly, then begins running her palms up and down Vi’s thighs. Vi hates to admit it, but it was calming. She hates that Cait has that effect on her: that she can't even be angry with the girl properly. 

“I love you so much,” Cait whispers. She captures Vi’s hands in her own, squeezes them desperately. “If I suggested any kind of residential treatment, it was as a last resort. And the therapy, Vi, all of it, it’s only because…” Her voice catches, and Vi forces herself to finally meet her eyes. “I can’t stand to lose you. I know how much you’ve been struggling, and I can’t…”

Vi reaches out, catching Cait’s tears with her thumb and smoothing them into her cheek. “Cait…”

“Vi, I can’t help you.” Their eyes meet, then, for what feels like the first time in a long time. Vi wants to flinch away from the sheer intimacy of it, but she doesn't. She watches as Cait swallows, breathing in through her nose and exhaling shakily. “I can’t help you in the way that you need. It’s not enough for me just to be here for you. I know how much you hate yourself–” That makes Vi flinch. “–I can’t stand to lose you this way, my love. I won’t.”

“Cait.” Vi’s voice comes out strangled. “You won’t lose me, okay?”

Cait brings Vi’s hand to her mouth and kisses it. “Baby, sometimes I feel like I already have.”

“I’ll–” Vi feels the tears begin to sting at her eyes, the hazy comfort of alcohol beginning to fade. “I’ll stop drinking, okay? We can talk more. We can – I don’t know, fuck it – what should I do, Cait?”

Her partner straightens then, hands still interlinked with Vi’s, and stands up, pulling Vi to her feet as well. Vi sways a little – okay, maybe the booze hasn’t fully worn off yet – and lets herself be pulled into the embrace. Cait wraps her arms around her waist and says into her shoulder: “Go to therapy, Vi. That’s all I want you to do, for now. I really think it will help. I just want you to try.”

Vi tries to sigh, but as she exhales, a sob slips from her lips instead. She feels immediately embarrassed, somehow, vulnerable; but then Cait pulls her tighter and winds her fingers through her hair and kisses her neck and says, “I’m here, baby, I’m here,” and then Vi finally lets herself cry. Just for now. Just for tonight.

A little later, she sits on the edge of the bed and raises her arms as Cait strips the wet clothes from her body. “Okay,” she mumbles, exhausted from crying and still a little drunk. Cait tugs a soft, dry shirt over Vi’s head and smooths back damp hair from her forehead. Her fingers linger on Vi’s cheek, and Vi feels herself leaning into the touch.

“Okay, what?” whispers Cait.

“I’ll try,” Vi mumbles, as Cait’s thumb traces her jaw. “I promise.”

Chapter Text

Two days pass and neither of them say much about that evening by the fire. Vi’s drunken memory blurs the important parts, and she wonders if Cait maybe had second-thoughts about the whole therapy thing after all. But then Thursday rolls around and Cait gently shakes her awake, placing a gentle kiss on her neck, just below her ear. “Come on, my love. We’ve an appointment to get to.”

Vi bites back a groan.

It shouldn’t surprise her that Cait accompanies her to the appointment. It was a miracle Vi talked her out of it the first time, but today, Cait’s arm is looped through hers as they meander across town to the hospital building. She may as well be being frogmarched in cuffs.

The therapy offices are behind the main hospital building. Here, the rooms are fancy; even the waiting room smells faintly of cinnamon and has fresh flowers in a vase on the windowsill. But it isn’t lost on Vi that the view from the window overlooks a small, green courtyard and a neat-looking building with the words ‘Rosewater Rehabilitation’ carved into the iron gate. 

Always just a stone’s throw from confinement, no matter where she seems to go.

Once they arrived in the waiting room, Cait sits with her legs neatly crossed, leafing delicately through a magazine, whilst Vi paces by the window, eyes flitting down to the courtyard below. She knows that Cait would prefer her to sit down, to stop moving for just a moment, but Vi can't quite hold her nerve. She doesn't want this, doesn't fucking need this, but she couldn't stand the look of desperation on Cait’s face that night. 

You won’t lose me, okay?

Baby, sometimes I feel like I already have. 

What does she mean by that? Vi didn't think she'd been that vacant, at least not most of the time. Sure, she found it more difficult to… connect with things. To care about things. Sure, she wants to hit something probably four times more than usual. But none of that is cause for concern… is it?

Cait had lost her damn eye, for fuck’s sake. If anyone should be in therapy, shouldn’t it be her?

When Rafsa finally calls her in, Vi could swear she sees Cait’s shoulders slump in relief. She tries not to feel too bitter about the fact that she so clearly stresses Cait out. 

“I’ll be right here when you get out,” Cait assures her, flashing her a soft smile as Vi nods, chewing the inside of her cheek, and follows the doctor inside. 

“Sit wherever you like,” Rafsa tells her, holding the door open.

There are several seats in the small, open-plan room. Vi supposes it's some kind of test; though, on her first visit, she’d been in too foul a mood to pay much attention to it. Now, she lingers in the doorway and scans the potential options. Two leather armchairs by the window. A table with another two chairs. A low chaise longe in the corner – though she can't imagine a scenario in which she actually laid down and let some man fill her head with nonsense from above. 

She opts for the armchairs; the same as last time, though this time she chooses the opposite seat. Doctor Rafsa takes the other chair without comment, settling in and setting the notebook down on the coffee table between them.

“Can I get you a drink?” Rafsa offers. “Tea? Water?”

She shakes her head. 

“I’m glad you decided to come back, Vi.” His head tilts as he watches her, carefully. Vi fights back the urge to shrink under his gaze, feeling her jaw tighten defensively instead. “I thought maybe we could start by setting some goals for working together. How does that sound?”

Fucking terrible. “Fine.”

Rafsa hums, nodding, satisfied with this answer. “I know that you feel you’re here for your partner. She must mean an awful lot to you for you to come back.”

Vi says nothing, letting his words hang in the air between them.

The doctor is unfazed. “What did she say to you to get you to return, Vi?”

She scowls. “None of your business.”

“I’m just intrigued as to why you would come here for her, Vi. That’s what you said when we met earlier in the week, didn’t you? You said you were here for Cait, that’s all.”

Damn shrinks remember everything, Vi thinks, bitterly. 

"So,” the doctor continues. “I’m curious as to what Cait said to get you to return.”

“She said she was…” Vi clears her throat, keeping her voice flat. Emotionless. “She was scared of losing me, or something. She feels like she’s lost me. I don’t know.”

“Has she lost you?”

“No.”

“But she feels that way?”

Vi scoffs. “I haven’t been very easy to live with, I guess. And if everyone would just fuck off and leave me alone I could just deal with this shit by myself, but it seems you topsiders just love shoving your problems somewhere you can’t see them.”

Neither of them are expecting her to say so much, she realises. Slowly, almost comically, the doctor reaches across the coffee table, picks up his notebook and begins writing something down. Vi almost laughs. Almost. Instead, she bounces her leg and stares out of the window and wonders how sound-proof the walls are; whether Cait is listening intently from the waiting room. 

“So, how exactly would you deal with it,” the doctor says, finally, setting his pen down, “if everyone just fucked off and left you alone?”

His language alone is enough to draw a short snort from Vi’s lips, but Rafsa keeps his expression neutral. She shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “I don’t know. Deal with it in my own way. I just need time to, you know, process.”

That’s right, fucker, she thinks, glowing a little. I know therapy speak.

“Process,” he echoes.

“Yup.” She meets his gaze. “It’s important to process your emotions.”

This time, he does smile. “Alright. And I’ve been told that you usually, uh, process your emotions by drinking yourself into oblivion, getting into fistfights you’re likely to lose, and generally avoiding conversations around your own wellbeing. Does that sound at all accurate?”

Vi slumps back in the armchair. “Oh, fuck off.”

Rafsa hums in that infuriating way. “I’ll take that as confirmation.”

“Fuck you.”

For a few, long moments, the only sound in the room is the scribble of Rafsa’s pen on paper as he scrawls his observations in the notebook. Vi bounces her leg and stares out of the window and wonders what Vander would say if he could see her now. Would he agree with Cait, that all this talking about feelings bullshit actually worked? Or would he be laughing, telling her to pull herself together and use that brain of hers to do something useful with her life? 

It was something that preoccupied her brain a lot, recently. The idea of what those she’d lost would be thinking if they could see her now.

She guessed that was why she drank so much. It quieted their judgement, their expectations.

After a while, Rafsa clears his throat and says, gently, “Can I ask you a personal question, Vi?”

She shoots him a deadpan look.

He pushes on: “Whatever you say here stays between the two of us, you understand, unless I think you’re in immediate danger. But I have to say, when Miss Kiramann referred you to me…” A pause. “Well, she seemed to think you were in immediate danger.”

Vi frowns, but doesn't meet his eyes.

“I need to ask you, Vi. Do you feel suicidal at all?”

She bites her tongue until she tastes blood. “I’m not going to kill myself, doctor.”

“That’s not entirely what I asked.” He closes the notebook on his lap and leans backwards in the armchair. “I’m not asking if you have any imminent plans to end your life, Vi. But I am asking if you think about suicide. Or whether you think things would be easier for everyone if you weren’t here.”

This time, she meets his eyes. “Of course things would be easier.”

Rafsa raises his eyebrows, just slightly. “How’s that?”

Vi scoffs a laugh, the sound echoing in the small space. “Doc, I’m a mess. I don’t know how to… feel things the way everyone wants me to. Cait’s life would be a hundred times better if I weren’t here taking up her time and worrying her and…” She trails off. Clears her throat. “She deserves better.”

“Let’s come back to not knowing how to feel things.” His voice is gentle in a way that makes Vi tense up. “How do you feel, Vi?”

Easy question. “Angry.”

“All the time?”

Her jaw clenches. “Yes.”

“Hm.” 

He writes something down. Vi grips the arms of the chair, white-knuckled.

“I know Cait thinks it would be easier for me to be, I don’t know – sad.” She doesn’t know why she carries on speaking, her words building momentum as they tumble out of her mouth. “But I can’t help it. Sometimes I try to be sad about…” Don’t say it. “...But all I feel is this rage instead. And I don’t want to be angry around Cait because she’s been through so much and I love her and, fuck, she deserves so much better than that – so, what? I go out and drink and fight instead and then Cait doesn’t have to see that side of me. Is that so bad? I’m… I’m protecting her, Doc.”

There’s a pause as Vi catches her breath, and then Rafsa says, “That’s an interesting point of view.”

“Thanks.”

Outside, she watches people move like ants on the streets below. It's fascinating how things just… carry on, after everything. The war had torn the city apart, but they're just putting it back together like it was nothing. Painting over the blood and rebuilding the blown-up walls and moving on with their lives. How is that possible?

The doctor’s voice is soft. “You’ve lost a lot of people, Vi. Your parents, your sister–”

“–I don’t want to talk about them.”

She isn't expecting the venom in her voice, the way her muscles seem to tense all at once. Her gaze snaps from the window to the doctor in one sharp movement, and he raises a single hand in defeat, his expression unchanging.

“Okay. Let’s talk about something else.” He taps the pen against the fabric of his notebook. The clock on the wall ticks, ticks, ticks. “When you feel angry, who do you feel angry at?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Vi lets her eyes close for just a moment until she’s sure they won’t betray her by letting hot tears spill. She picks at her fingernails. Bounces her leg. Forces herself to breathe deeply through her nose before landing her scowl on Rafsa and saying, “Myself .”

Chapter Text

“I think we could probably call it a day on the therapy thing.” Vi doesn’t make eye contact with Cait as she undresses quickly and slips her sweats on. She never used to be nervous changing in front of her girlfriend, but recently she’s tired of feeling vulnerable. Even in this – their safest of spaces. “It’s not doing anything and forcing me to go is just going to make things worse.”

She’s being manipulative, and she knows it. Still Caitlyn, with the patience of a saint, merely sighs. “You’ve hardly given it much of a chance, my love. You’ve been twice.”

“Two times in a room with that guy is more than enough.” She doesn’t really have anything against the doctor, but it’s easier to pretend her hostility comes from a clash in personalities rather than more–how had the good doctor put it?– avoidance tactics?

“I don’t want you to feel I’m forcing you, Violet.”

“Well, you sure as hell aren’t giving me a choice, are you?”

“I’m worried about you.” Cait pulls on her own night-clothes, tugging her perfectly straight hair from under the neckline and smoothing it into a ponytail. “It makes me feel better to know you’re seeing a professional. To know you’re speaking to someone, even if you can’t speak to me.”

Her heart sinks, the anger deflating inside of her chest. “Cait.”

“It’s okay, Vi. I mean it.” Gingerly, Cait leans over and pecks a kiss on her cheek. Vi fights the urge to flinch away – when had that started? As if sensing the tension, Cait pulls away just as quickly. “Will you try? Please? You promised.”

Vi sighs. She had promised. Under the influence, sure, but still. “Mm.”

It seems to satisfy Cait for now, because she slips into bed and gestures for Vi to do the same without argument. Lying beside one another, their hands are the only thing that touch. It’s been so long now since Vi initiated anything other than the brush of her fingers against Cait’s that the distance between them feels vast and cold. Still, she loops her pinky finger through Cait’s to remind her that she’s still here so that her girlfriend can fall asleep. 

She waits until Cait’s breathing has deepened and she’s begun to softly snore before slipping out of the bed. She likes the house at this time of night. In the daytime, these halls are too empty, too tall, and she feels like a fish out of water as she drags herself down ornate staircases and avoids eye contact with the staff. 

Under the dark cover of night, she can imagine she’s in the undercity, still. Or, at the very least, running a job in Piltover, Mylo and Claggor and Powder in tow. Their names, even hanging in the silence of her head, unspoken, are like salt in a wound. Vi swallows, thickly, and skulks through the dark corridor, feet padding against cold marble, until she finds the garden.

It was one of the first places Caitlyn had shown her when Vi first officially moved in. The garden Cait used to play in, tucked away in the centre of the building, a small courtyard barely big enough for the flowerbeds that grew there. Cait told her how she’d escape there as a child, lie down on the grass and look up at that small, blue, patch of sky.

Since then, Vi found herself drifting there, too. Not just for the square of sky, separate from the rest of the city and somehow just theirs , but for Ekko’s painting.

A mural; nowhere near as big as the others she’d seen, only as tall as she was, really. But there they were; Vander, Mylo, Claggor, Caitlyn’s mother… Jinx. When Ekko had first painted the mural, on a grey afternoon several months after the war had ended, Vi had refused to see it. In fact, as far as anyone knew, she’s still never seen the memorial painted for those they’d lost. But she’d visited the garden in secret that night. Continued to visit it nightly ever since. 

She can’t sleep these days, not without all of the things she’s done haunting her subconscious. It’s easier– better –to come here and see their faces as she wants to remember them. She can’t chance another night of fire and Powder’s face and please don’t leave me, Violet, please, I need you–

No, sleep is no friend of Vi’s, these days. She catches the odd hour here and there, fitful and restless, and often wakes up feeling worse than when she’d drifted off. The drinking helps her sleep dreamlessly, on nights when she drinks enough of it to numb the thoughts. The pain.

God, she’s a mess. 

“Hey,” she mutters, addressing the painted wall. “Me, again.”

She wasn’t sure how he’d managed it, but Ekko had captured Vander’s kind, watchful gaze perfectly. She can barely maintain eye contact with the painting without shrinking under those too-caring eyes, that gentle judgement. 

“I went back. So, you know. I’ll take a congratulations, if there’s one going.” Vi bites her lip, sinking to her knees in front of the wall, sitting in her usual place with her back against a tall potted plant. “Honestly, yeah, it was Cait. I wouldn’t have bothered otherwise. I don’t think it helps.”

A pause.

“I’m serious. It’s bullshit. Everyone’s dead and it’s my fault, but if I sit down and spill my guts to some bloke in a white coat I’ll suddenly be healed and everything will be fine again?” She scoffs. “I mean, he doesn’t actually wear a white coat. But you get the point. I feel this way because I’m supposed to feel this way. Sometimes people deserve to feel guilty. Sometimes people are just bad people.”

There’s a flutter of wings that makes Vi flinch, turning her glassy-eyed gaze to the skies. In the tree that she leans against, a crow perches on a low branch. As she exhales, a short puff of relief, it tilts it’s head to the side and caws.

“Hm.” She sniffs, feeling her eyes grow misty but unwilling to let tears fall. “Of course.”

The painted Vander almost seems to smile. 

Vi feels like there’s something inside of her that might never be whole again. Broken beyond repair.

“I don’t want to die, not like they think,” she whispers, tears burning stubbornly at her eyes as she tilts her head to the sky. “But there’s not a single fucking part of me that wants to live.”

Chapter Text

Vi drags a hand over her face. “I’m fine, Cait.”

“You look like you’ve got two black eyes, those bags are so dark.” Cait shoots her a look. “I know you aren’t sleeping. I woke up without you again this morning.”

Vi ignores the hurt that tinges Cait’s words and turns back to the task at hand: coffee. The only thing that seems to get her through the day (besides booze, and Cait was tightening the reigns on her extracurricular activities). The machine didn’t want to cooperate; some fancy-ass contraption that probably cost more than a month’s rent in the undercity. It had been the best part of a year since she’d technically moved topside. She still can't get used to it.

“I ran into Ekko yesterday,” Cait says, as Vi battles with the attachments on the coffee machine. “He thought he could stop by and see you today, if you wanted.”

“I don’t need visitors like I’m some–damn–” She slams her palm into the machine and it, finally, begins spurting espresso into her mug. She sighs, not turning to face her, staring instead into the mug as steam rises up. “I’m fine, Cait.”

“Say it one more time, maybe it’ll be true.”

Vi feels her shoulders tense as Cait stands from the kitchen table and moves beside her without meeting her eyes. Vi sighs. Their fingers brush as Vi hands the first mug to her partner and lets Cait stir in her own sugar. That’s why you’re so sweet, Vi had teased, the first time she’d seen Cait make coffee with milk and sugar whist she nursed hers black.

She didn’t tease like that, anymore. Now, it was clenched jaws and concerned glances when they thought each other weren’t looking. Part of her wished they could just go back to how they were before everything changed. Part of her wished Cait would just cut her loose, give up on her, and finally move on with her life. Vi didn’t need anyone to tell her that she was holding Cait back. She saw it in her girlfriend’s eyes every day.

Cait leans back against the counter, both hands cradling the coffee as she sips delicately. Vi notices, not for the first time, that Cait is standing on her right. She always did, since losing her eye. Her good eye was facing away from her, the patch closest. She tried not to think about why: about how maybe Cait didn’t want to see her all of the time.

Ridiculous. She knows it is. 

But still, she’s never thought to ask. It feels too weird a thing to say.

“Good coffee,” Cait murmurs into her cup.

Vi grunts an acknowledgement, waiting for the machine to finish and then scooping her own cup into her hands. She turns, mirroring Cait, leaning back against the counter beside her. They’re facing into the dining room; the wide window opposite them looking out onto the busy street below. They both raise their cups to their mouths at the same time, elbows bumping. 

“So,” Cait says, finally, still staring out of the window. “Ekko. Will you meet with him?”

Vi bristles. “Cait.”

“He misses you. It’s important to have friends, Vi. I don’t want you to isolate yourself.”

“I’m not isolated,” she grumbles, taking another swig of her coffee, swallowing. “I have you.”

That makes Cait smile, just a little. “Yes, well. He still wants to see you. I’m not the only person that loves you, Vi.”

Vi stares into her coffee. “Why do you?”

She doesn’t expect the question to slip out, it just kind of… does. Immediately, she wishes she could take it back, but she can’t bear to meet Cait’s gaze, to see the kind of pity that might look back at her. 

She clears her throat, shaking her head. “Never mind, ignore that–”

“Why do I love you?” Cait’s voice is impossibly soft. “Is that really what you’re asking?”

Vi breathes out a short, shaky laugh. “Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not particularly loveable, cupcake.”

There’s a pause and, for the first time, Vi is terrified of hearing the words she knows are buzzing around somewhere in Caitlyn’s mind. Well, actually, maybe I don’t love you, she imagines the other woman saying. Maybe that used to be true, but now you’re bitter and resentful and unkind and a drunk and it turns out maybe the only good things about you were just fragments of other people and now they’ve gone and taken all of your goodness with them.

A short clink of china on countertop and then Cait is in front of her, hands prying the coffee from her fingers and setting Vi’s mug down on the counter. Cait put her hands either side of Vi’s face, her palms still warm from cradling her drink, and nudges her chin with her pinky finger. 

“Look at me, Vi,” she whispers. “Look at me, baby.”

I don’t deserve you, Vi thinks, closing her eyes. 

“Your grief doesn’t make you unloveable, Violet.” Cait’s thumbs stroke her cheeks and Vi wills herself not to break down because really, how fucking pathetic is this? Once again she’s somehow managed to manipulate Cait into… into caring about her because… well, why else would she? “Violet. Vi. Please.”

Vi forces her eyes open. Meets Cait’s with an unsteady gaze. Tries with everything in her not to cry.

Cait is crying, Vi notices with a hitch in her breath. Cait has been through so much already. Vi can’t be the one – shouldn’t be the one to put her through more–

Cait kisses the bridge of her nose, keeps her face close. “You’re spiralling, Violet.”

I’m not. The words are there on the tip of her tongue, but somehow she can’t make herself say them. Maybe she was spiralling. Maybe her whole life up until this point had been a long, downward spiral, and she was finally reaching the bottom. I think I’m out of time, she wants to say to her girlfriend, with a sick desperation that pools in the pit of her stomach. Please don’t hate me, but I don’t think I can do this anymore. 

She must have said that last bit out loud, she realises, because Cait is holding her tighter now, one arm hooked around Vi’s waist and the other stroking her hair. There’s another sound too, and it takes her a moment to realise that she’s sobbing, her body shaking with it.

“You can do it,” Cait promises her. “You can do anything.”

“What if I can’t?” she weeps, hating the way her body wracks with each sob, the feeling physically painful. 

Cait tugs her waist, pulls the two of them together by force and holds Vi in her arms like an anchor in this storm. 

“I’d love you regardless,” Cait promises. 

“What if–” Vi cuts herself off with another sob, her fingers clutching at Cait’s sweater now, desperate for something to hold onto. “What if I never get better?”

“I’d love you regardless,” says Cait, holding her tighter. “Do you hear me? I would love you. Regardless.”

Chapter Text

Vi showers for the first time in a week. She watches the grime trickle from her body and down the drain, turns the heat up until it’s scalding and she can hear her heart pounding in her ears. Cait’s gone to work; her world didn’t stop turning when Vi’s felt like it ended. Vi dresses in the silence of the bedroom, choosing Cait’s clothes instead of her own. It’s become something of a habit, these days; opting for Cait’s oversized sweaters and soft leggings over her own clothes. Still, the clothes are mostly black, so they aren’t too far from her usual style and, well, it’s a comfort to keep a little of Cait with her wherever she goes, even if she hates to admit it.

Ekko raises an eyebrow when Vi pads into the kitchen swamped in an oversized navy-blue knitted jumper, hair still wet from the shower. “Wow. Topside really got to you, huh?”

She flips him off, moving to the coffee machine. “Nice, kiddo. Coffee?”

Ekko smirks. “I’m good.”

She battles with the machine, cursing under her breath, whilst Ekko settles in at the dining room table. He’s flicking through a sketchbook, fingers blackened with charcoal. Vi busies herself with the coffee longer than she needs to, throat tight with anticipation. 

“You gonna look at me?”

She swipes wet hair back from her face as the machine whirs to life, shoulders slumping, and turns to face him. “Yeah, kid.”

“Cait says you haven’t been doing too hot.”

“You two friends, now, huh?”

Ekko shrugs. “I mean, I don’t know. But she cares about you enough to let me know when you need kicking up the ass.”

Vi raises an eyebrow. “She say that?”

He smirks. “No. That was me.”

She snorts a laugh, turns back to the machine and takes a sip of her coffee. Burns her tongue and swears. When she turns back around, Ekko is leaning back in his chair, fingers toying at the edge of his sketchbook.

“I, uh, I meant to come see you, sooner,” he says, finally.

“You saw me a few weeks ago.”

Ekko frowns. “It’s been months, Vi.”

She feels cold all of a sudden, letting the sleeves of Cait’s jumper fall over her hands as she takes another sip of the coffee. Avoidance, that’s probably what the doctor would call this. Still, she’s not sure how else she’s supposed to react. Sorry, bud, looks like I lost time there. It’s been happening a lot, actually. Turns out I just blink and days pass without me realising.

Ekko keeps his gaze fixed on her; she can feel it, even as she stares down into the coffee instead. “Are you doing okay, Vi? I mean, shit. How are you feeling?”

It might be the most vulnerable she’s heard Ekko sound in a long time. It’s raw enough that she drags her eyes from the damn mug and up to meet his. She clears her throat. “I don’t know.” She sighs. “Not good, I guess?”

Ekko’s expression softens a little. Vi takes a swig of her coffee, winces at the heat, and tries not to hate herself for burdening Ekko with this shit. He’ll still always be that little kid in her eyes; still the closest thing to a younger sibling she has left. He doesn’t need to sit and listen to her whine about her life when he’s lost just as much as she has.

“Takes time,” he says, finally, his voice quiet. “You know. Nobody was ever expecting you to just jump straight back in. Healing takes time.”

She grunts. “You sound like the shrink.”

“Yeah.” He shifts in his chair, gaze focussed on her even as she tries to avert hers elsewhere. “Cait mentioned the therapy thing. Says you haven’t been – how did she say it? – particularly receptive .” He raises his eyebrows. “What’s that about?”

Vi crosses the kitchen, sinks down into a seat at the table with a sigh. “Give me a fucking break, man. I’m going, aren’t I?”

He snorts a short, humourless laugh. “Fuck off, Vi, you know that’s not how it works. You actually have to pull your finger out of your ass if you want anything to change.”

She hums.

Ekko slams the sketchbook shut, his forearms on the table as he leans towards her.

“What’s the big fucking deal, Vi?” Ekko’s voice has an edge to it now. “Go and do the fucking therapy. Hell – go to the damn psych ward if everyone is saying it will help you. Why are you so fucking reluctant to be helped?”

“I don’t need– ”

“Yes, you do.” Now, his voice is firm. Hard. “I’m straight up telling you that you do, Vi.” He drops his gaze. “We lost everyone else, now you’re gonna make me lose you, too?”

Oh . “Little man, I–”

“Don’t bullshit me.” He stands suddenly, chair scraping against the floor, and Vi swears she can see tears shining in his eyes, but Ekko doesn’t cry. “I love you, Vi. Get your shit together.”

Then he’s gone.

Her coffee sits, steaming, in front of her, the silence in the room suddenly far too loud. Her heart thuds loudly in her chest, her leg bounces against the underside of the table. This is what you do to people, says that bitter little voice inside of her. Can’t you see?

I need a drink, the other part of her brain mutters.

“Fuck.” 

She bites the inside of her cheek. Drums her fingers against the table. Takes a swig of the too-hot coffee, then another, then finishes it entirely, feeling her throat burn. Cait won’t be home for a few more hours. Ekko’s clearly too tired of her bullshit to stick around, and Vi… Well, Vi needs something to make her forget how much of a burden she is. Just for now. Just for today.

She rifles through kitchen cupboards like some kind of feral animal, but Caitlyn had clearly been there first. Vi checks all of the usual places; the dusty spaces at the back of shelves, tucked away behind jars and crockery and even the bottle on top of the fridge – all of it is gone. Cait was thorough, she’d give her that. No stone has been left unturned.

She’d have to find a different stone, then.

“This is a bad idea,” she murmurs to herself, dread pooling in her stomach even as she pulls on boots and a coat, lifting the hood over her head. “This is a really bad idea.”

Chapter Text

For the record, Vi doesn’t want to be like this.

It’s, frankly, embarrassing that she is. She pulls the hood down over her face to hide her shame as she skulks out of the house and into the rain. She could pretend she wasn’t shaking when she was back inside, but now that she’s out in the open, there’s a definite tremor in her hands as she shoves them into her pockets and dishes herself another healthy serving of self-loathing.

The city is full of drinking establishments. Somehow, despite the war, there seem to be even more cropping up as the days go by. Maybe people need somewhere to forget now more than ever. Maybe Vi isn’t the only one who’d rather forget than feel.

She finds a bar close to the house, stumbling in from the rain-soaked streets like she’s gasping for breath, and the first swig of bitter liquid makes her feel more whole than she has in months. She thinks, briefly, of Vander; imagines him standing behind the bar and topping up her glass instead of the straight-faced woman in her fifties that shoots her disapproving looks as Vi rests her head in her hands.

Ah, Vander would be so pissed .

She drinks until she forgets all about him, all about the war, all about Cait’s concern and Ekko’s frustration and her own hot guilt. She drinks until she feels confident, arrogant, spontaneous, reckless. Flip a coin and find out. What’s the point of anything anyway?

She’s hit on by some guy and catches a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror behind the bar: tearstained, rosy-cheeked. She decides only a prick flirts with girls who look as shitty as she does right now, and punches him square in the face.

The bartender drags her from the building and she sits on the cobbled stones outside and counts the grazes on her knuckles through bleary eyes. It had been a couple weeks since she’d hit anything. Adrenaline pulses through her. Her knuckles are red, raw, stained with another man’s blood and split open into scuffed, stinging wounds. Now her hands finally look like hers again.

Rain pools in shallow puddles around her. The wet seeps through Cait’s leggings and into the shoulders of her knitted navy-blue jumper. Wait, wasn’t I wearing a coat? Where the fuck is my–?

She pushes to her feet and makes to go back inside a bar, but there’s a man twice her size at the door that throws her back out onto the street with a growl. She lands, hard, grazing the palms of her hand. 

“Go home, kid,” says the man. 

Something about him reminds her of Vander. 

Maybe he’s someone else’s Vander.

Vi watches blood trickle from her hands, watches the rain tinge pink as it catches each bead and drags them down her arms. Fuck whoever else gets to still have a Vander. How the fuck is that fair, universe?

She climbs to her feet and starts another fight.

This time, she loses. 

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she’s faintly embarrassed. She’s used to winning most fights, except the ones she’s trying to lose. It’s hard to tell, in the alcohol-haze of her brain, whether she wanted to lose this one or not. Maybe she did know she wouldn’t beat the guy. Maybe, somewhere deep down, she wanted to be beaten to a pulp.

A snort, half-hearted. If that’s not something to talk about in therapy, I don’t know what is.

She’s left to bleed out in an alleyway somewhere.

Good, she thinks, feeling lightheaded. What you deserve .

Maybe she’ll die here, the streetrat she’s always been. She wonders whether it might be true, what people have been telling her since the day she lost her parents. You’ll see them again, on the other side. The other side of what? That’s what she’d always responded, gappy-toothed and stubborn, until finally people stopped saying it. She hadn’t believed it, not back then. She isn’t sure whether she believes it now. 

If she did die in a pool of her own vomit in an alley behind a dead-end bar in Piltover, she wonders what Powder will say. There’s another complicated question. Say she does die, does cross over to some magical world where everyone dead is alive again and nobody hates her like she hates herself – will Powder be Powder? Or will she be Jinx?

Vi wishes most nights that she’d accepted Jinx a lot sooner than she did. Maybe if Powder – Jinx – fuck , her sister – maybe if her sister knew that she’d be loved regardless, Vi could have saved everyone a whole world of hurt.

But she clearly never made her feel that way. Loved. Regardless. 

She turns and hurls onto the pavement. 

Actually, death is starting to sound not so good. She isn’t sure she can face her sister right now. Or anyone else for that matter. She can’t stand to see the judgement in their eyes when they hear exactly how the fuck she ended up dead.

She almost laughs at the fictional world she’s created in her head: these people that are starting to feel more and more like characters in a story the longer she’s away from them. But the movement of that half-laugh sends pain shooting through her chest and she realises, with a pang of annoyance, that she’s almost definitely broken a rib. 

Alright, options. She swallows back bile. Die in a hole, or call someone to help.

She isn’t actually sure which one feels like the better option, which is utterly depressing. Fumbling at her pockets, trying not to shift too much with the pain splitting her side, fingers desperately feeling for the mobile phone Cait had set her up with – and insisted she take everywhere – a few months ago. 

But the phone’s in her coat, and the coat’s in the bar, and the bar definitely isn’t going to let her back in after that last little stunt.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Caitlyn storms through hospital hallways, takes stairs two at a time, scowls at anyone that dares ask her to slow down, and finally finds Violet’s ward.

She knows that this particular ward is Violet’s because she can hear a… commotion from behind the door. It sounds an awful lot like a certain pink-haired drunk lashing out at nurses who were only trying to do their fucking job.

And Cait would have none of it.

She slams through two sets of double doors and then, to her right, she sees it. A room with several nurses standing, hands raised in defeat – in fear? – as they slowly back away from… Ah, yes. 

Of course. 

“Excuse me,” says Caitlin, tiredly, from the hall. “I believe that’s my girlfriend.”

Backed into a corner, wielding a scalpel – where the hell had she found a scalpel? – Violet is pressed against the wall, knees up to her chest, an expression on her face that only Cait knows isn’t actually aggression. 

It’s fear.

“Vacate the room,” Cait says from the doorway, arms crossed over her chest as she watches the nurses – three of them – whip their heads around to see her.

“Ma’am,” one of them begins, but another, clearly their senior, holds up a hand to stop them.

“Ma’am,” says the more senior nurse, ushering the other two out of the room. “We need to treat her. They wrapped the hands on the way here but we suspect she has multiple broken ribs.” He shoots a look at Vi, who is still scowling at him with scalpel raised. “She’s inebriated. She needs x-rays. Minimum. We need to see what we’re dealing with.” He lowers his voice, then. “And we’ve called the psychiatric team.”

“Get fucked.” Violet speaks, finally, and her voice is so croaking and quiet that she sounds half-dead. Cait feels some of her anger softening, quickly replaced by frustration. “M’not going anywhere.” 

Caitlyn shares a knowing look with the nurse. Nods, once. “I’ll call you when we’re ready. Thank you.”

He closes the door behind him. The room is suddenly very quiet, the voices of the nurses muted outside in the hallway. Violet looks up, finally meet her eyes, and drops the knife to the floor with a clatter. 

Caitlyn’s head tilts as she takes in the scene before her. The love of her life, battered and bruised and curled up so small Cait wants to scoop her up and carry her far away; the scattered mess of bedsheets, paper charts and a spilled plastic water jug; the blinds on the window that look broken and dishevelled as if… She sighs, internally. Of course Vi had tried to escape out of the window.

Vi’s eyes are closed now, her head tilted back against the wall. She looks so small and vulnerable that Cait has to remind herself that it was Vi that got herself into this mess. She is not the victim, here.

So why does she look so much like one?

“Were you really threatening those nurses with a scalpel?” Caitlyn scolds, looping an arm under her partner’s waist and gently lifting her from the floor. 

Violet flinches at the initial touch but, in seconds, leans almost her whole body weight on her. “Ow.”

“Here.” Cait lifts her and sets her down on the bed, shifting the unmade sheets out of the way and straightening them over Vi’s knees. “Why are you so wet?”

“Rain,” her girlfriend mutters, attempting to prop herself up without being able to shift her chest. Cait reaches out to help, tucking a pillow behind her neck. “Lost the coat. Sorry.”

Caitlyn hovers by the bed, feeling sick at the sight of Vi looking so… So close to… God, how close a call had it been this time? She bites her lip, willing herself not to snap, but she just can’t help it. “What the fuck , Violet?”

Vi doesn’t even flinch against the hardness of Cait’s voice. It’s almost as if she’s been expecting it, which makes Cait’s heart sink.

“They were try’na give me that…” She winces, squeezes her eyes shut, and Cait feels her heart lurch. “That stuff they gave me last time, ‘member? With the dreams.”

Caitlyn did remember, in a rush of searing guilt. The last time they’d been here – Cait wishes it was longer ago, but it can only have been a couple of months – the nurses had given Violet something to relax her, and it had worked for a couple of hours. She’d slept solidly but awoken screaming. She couldn’t talk for hours afterwards, admitting to Cait days later that the nightmares had been so vivid, she’d thought they were real.

Truthfully, she isn’t sure Vi has slept properly since that day.

“Alright,” Cait says, softly. “Fine. You didn’t want the drugs. I understand.” She takes a steadying breath, her eyes scanning Vi’s broken body. Yellow and blue bruises are beginning to bloom on her cheek, her jawline, her neck. Her hands are dressed in bandages: the medics must have been able to see to them, at least, whilst Vi was passed out. But beneath the jumper – of course she’s wearing Cait’s jumper – she had no idea what kind of injuries her girlfriend had sustained. “You need to let them see to you, you know.”

Vi raises both palms to her face and presses then against her eyes. Cait’s seen this before, this desperate attempt to stop herself from crying. Suddenly, Cait wants nothing more than to wrap her up, hold her tightly, never let anything hurt her ever again.

But she can’t.

“Didn’t mean to,” Vi whispers.

“Didn’t mean to, what?” she responds, her voice gentle as she pulls up a chair beside the bed and settles down, placing a hand on Vi’s leg, smoothing the hospital blanket. “Violet?”

“Any of it.” Her hands are still pressed to her eyes, her voice rough. “All of it. I shouldn’t have, I was just…”

Tears burn at Caitlyn’s eyes. “I know."

“I always let you down.” This time, Vi’s voice does crack and, despite the bandaged hands still pressed to her face, Cait can see the thin tear tracks beginning to run down her cheeks. “M’sorry, cupcake. I’m…”

“Hey.” She stands up, pushes the chair back. “Can I hold you?”

“Can you…?” Vi sniffs, makes a sound like a strangled sob, and swipes a sleeve across her face. “Cait.”

“Will it hurt you if I…”

When Vi shakes her head, she climbs into the bed beside her and loops her arm around Vi’s shoulder, tugging her in so that she’s lying against Cait’s chest. Vi gasps in pain as she shifts and Cait feels herself stiffen in sheer fear, but then Vi is leaning against her. She can’t move most of her upper body, Cait realises, but Vi nestles her head into the crook of Cait’s neck and weeps.

Cait feels her heart break inside her chest.

“Are y’gonna make me…” Violet heaves a sniff. “Do I have to go see the psych people?”

“Yes, baby.” Cait surprises herself with the finality in her voice. “But we’ll talk about it later. First, you need to sober up and let them give you some painkillers.” She shifts her arm and notices Vi’s wince. “And you need an x-ray. Alright?”

“We’ll talk ‘bout it later?”

“I promise.”

“I love you.” It’s the first time she’s said it in months. Cait actually can’t remember the last time she heard Vi say those words. Cait said them all the time, reminding Vi of the fact so often that it almost felt her words had lost their meaning. Hearing Vi say it now makes tears spring to her eyes and spill, and she turns to the window, resting her chin on Vi’s head so that she can’t see her cry. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

It’s slurred, mumbled, but Cait knows she means it. She holds her as tight as she can without hurting her. 

“I love you, too.”

Chapter Text

Vi slips in and out of sleep. She tries to fight the fog that creeps in behind her eyes, and though Cait stayed true to her word and didn’t let the doctor’s give her the same drugs they had last time, she did argue that Vi needed to take the painkillers. The mixture of medicine, the flares of pain in her ribs when she moved, and the soft lull of Caitlyn’s voice at her bedside means she can’t fight the impending sleep for long. 

She dreams of Stillwater.

It’s the first time in a long time that the place has cropped up in her dreams. Usually she’s haunted by Powder, Vander, the blood and the battles and the shimmer-ravaged streets of the undercity. But Stillwater… Well, it almost feels like a whole lifetime ago. 

Cold, hard walls. Tears that never saw the light of day. Moments – fleeting at first, then increasingly long – where she thought she’d die down there. 

She starts awake, heart pounding, but the room is quiet. Cait snores softly in the chair beside her bed, one arm outstretched across Vi’s stomach, as though she’d been reaching for her hand even in sleep. Relaxing back in the bed, breathing deeply through her nose to steady her racing heart, she loops her fingers through Cait’s.

Her girlfriend stirs. “Vi… Violet?”

Vi manages a small smile, her voice still rough when she speaks: “I’m here. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay.” Cait runs a hand through her hair, pushing the strands back from her sleep-crumpled face. “Did you get some sleep, too?”

Vi’s heart swells. “Yeah, cupcake.”

“Good.”

Vi squeezes her hand again. She can’t think of anything else to say. Images of the prison cell are still fading from her mind, and all she can think about is the ward, the damn psych ward they’d spoken about before she fell asleep. That conversation is the reason all of these unpleasant memories are swimming to the surface. Just a few short hours and she’d be locked up once more. 

“I’m not sure what time it is,” Cait is saying. “Are you hungry? I could ask them to get you some breakfast… Lunch?” She glances to the window, mostly covered by the broken blinds. “Is it dark outside, still?”

She stands up to move towards the window, but Vi captures her hand again. “Cait.”

“What is it?” Cait was sitting down again in a flash, panic hitching her voice. “Are you in pain?”

Yes. “No.”

“What’s wrong, Vi?”

Vi’s throat suddenly feels as though it might be closing up. She swallows, thickly, resisting the urge to reach for the glass of water beside the bed, and pushes herself into a more upright position. God, her ribs sting with the movement, but the painkillers still numbed the worst of it. Cait reaches out to adjust the pillows, propping Vi up, and when she sits back down it’s on the bed this time, not the chair. She takes both of Vi’s hands in her own.

“What is it, Violet?”

Here we go. “The… ward. What we talked about last night.” She swallows again, watching Cait’s expression as it shifts from concern to guilt. “I need you to tell me more, Cait. It’s like this… this thing, lurking now, in the back of my mind.”

Cait’s eyes are full of understanding. Of course they are. “I should have explained more. You were just – you are still recovering, Vi, and I don’t want to upset…”

“I can handle it, Cait.”

Cait bites her lip, thinks for a moment, and then says, “What would you like to know?”

Their hands are still interlinked. “How long do I have to stay there?”

Cait exhales. “The doctor says a minimum of six weeks would be best.”

“Six weeks .” Her voice breaks, the image of her Stillwater cell creeping in. “Cait .”

Vi had entertained the idea of a few days. A week maybe, locked in some room with doctors fussing over her and mandated visitor time and shrinks scribbling nonsense in their notebooks. A week was manageable. But six?

Cait runs her thumb over her bandaged knuckles. “Vi, if you hate it, I will get you out of there, okay? That’s their recommended treatment time; that doesn’t have to be set in stone.”

Vi can’t fight the sinking feeling in her chest that springs tears to her eyes. Cait seems to see it, too. She squeezes Vi’s hands, her own eyes glassy.

“Listen to me. It isn’t like Stillwater, I promise. Nobody is going to lock you up, Vi, and nobody is going to treat you unkindly.” Cait presses a firm kiss to her hand. “I would never let that happen again.”

It doesn’t stop the pounding of her heart, but Vi nods, anyway.

Cait continues: “You’ll see for yourself: they’re going to show us around, if you feel well enough. You can stay there as soon as tonight, if you think it could work.”

“And if I don’t?” she croaks.

Cait’s expression falls, but she nods, slowly, anyway. “Then we’ll go back home and we’ll think of something else, okay? But I really think this could be good for you, Vi. It’s just a safe space with professionals who can understand how you’re feeling. Help you work through it.”

It all sounds like an awful lot of work. Ekko had hinted at it when he came to visit, that she had to put the work in . Can’t some things just be , without having to be fixed?

Almost as if she can read her mind, Caitlyn leans back in her chair with a soft smile. “The first step is admitting you need the help, Vi.”

Vi tries to roll her eyes, but the motion gives her a headache. “Sure thing, cupcake.”

Chapter Text

Days pass and, when the nurses finally deem Vi able to walk without falling over, they are permitted to leave Vi's ward for another.

This ward, in a separate part of the hospital, is colourful and smells faintly of citrus. There are paintings scattered down the hallways, which themselves are wide and airy. Lots of windows. Vi notes all of this with a detached kind of curiosity. So far, it doesn’t quite match up to the prison cell she’d painted in her mind.

Though I haven’t seen my room yet, she thinks. 

Cait scooches closer to her, slips her hand in Vi’s. “I know you’re determined to find something wrong with this place,” she murmurs into Vi’s ear, a touch of humour in her tone. “But could you wait until after the tour to tell me you hate it?”

Vi scoffs, but squeezes her hand anyway. “Fuck you, Kiramman.”

Cait smirks.

A doctor meets them at the entrance, introduces himself as Grehan. Vi isn’t sure whether Grehan is his first or second name, but she supposes it doesn’t actually matter. He’s a tall man, taller than Caitlyn, with dark hair streaked with grey and a short beard that is beginning to thin. His eyes are vibrant and kind. His voice is gruff, but they’ve only known him a few minutes and he’s already laughed three times. 

Vi hasn’t decided how she feels about him, yet.

He leads them down the entrance hallway and into a wide, open-plan room scattered with tables and chairs. A waft of something deliciously sweet drifts from a nearby hatch that opens into the kitchens. 

Vi raises her eyebrows. “I’ve heard you’re supposed to bake cookies when people view your house, you know, if you’re trying to sell it. Makes you want to stay.”

Cait looks like she’s debating whether to elbow her in the ribs despite the injury, but decides against it. Doctor Grehan, however, turns and shoots Vi a look that can only be described as amusement. “Is it? I had no idea.”

Caitlyn snorts.

“The cafeteria,” he declares, waving an arm at the room which is empty save for a couple talking in quiet voices at one of the tables. “Now, let me show you the rec room.”

The tour lasts for at least an hour. Grehan leads them around the recreation room, the lounge room, art therapy rooms and group therapy rooms and regular, one-to-one therapy rooms. It isn’t lost on Vi that he doesn’t show them the bedrooms, yet. The place is… nice. Too nice. It makes her suspicious, even though everyone they run into seems, generally, content.

Caitlyn’s hand is tight in hers the entire time. 

“We have set meal times,” Grehan is saying as they walk through another brightly painted corridor. “But snacks are available from the kitchens whenever you’d like.”

“And what about visits?” Caitlyn prompts, her voice firm. “Can I see her? Daily?”

“Of course,” says Grehan. “Our visitation hours are very flexible, but we generally ask that guests come between nine a.m. and five p.m.”

“Really?” says Vi, glancing at Cait. “She can come for the whole day?”

“Sure.” Grehan smiles. “Though, for the sake of your recovery, we’d suggest keeping visits short for the first few days, just to avoid distractions.” Caitlyn nods, eager, and even Vi feels her shoulders relax. “I’m getting the sense we need to sit down and talk about expectations, here. Shall we go to my office?”

Cait looks at Vi.

Asking, Vi realises with a warm glow, for permission.

“Okay,” Vi agrees. 

They follow Grehan through a set of double doors – unlocked, Vi notes with a sense of relief – and across a short stretch of grass. A fountain spurts clear water. Several people– patients?– are lounging in patches of sun on the grass or scattered benches; talking, reading, painting. Vi swallows. She’s never had any kind of hobby that doesn’t involve punching something. This place is all entirely alien to her. 

Cait, however, looks right at home. Vi doesn’t miss the way her eyes light up as her gaze scans the tranquil space. In another life, Vi’s sure that Cait would be an artist. A painter or a poet. She’s beginning to wonder whether they’ll admit Cait, too; give her a break from the real world for a while.

Grehan’s office is a light space: white walls that somehow don’t feel clinical, colourful rugs on the wooden floor, incense burning in the corner and filling the room with a sweet, smoky cinnamon. Caitlyn and Vi take their seats facing a large wooden writing desk, and Grehan moves to take his own chair behind it. The desk is old, scuffed and ink-stained, scattered with paperwork and candles burnt down to the wick and a single photo of three small girls. 

“Alright.” He shuffles paperwork on the desk between them, but doesn’t pass anything over. “I’d like to admit you on an informal basis, Violet. Shall I go through a little of what that would mean?”

She doesn’t even correct him on her name, her heart is thudding too loudly in her chest. “Fine.”

“So, essentially, you’ll be here completely of your own free will.” He looks up from the paperwork, meeting her eyes. “You’ll have free reign of the facility, you’ll be permitted to leave the grounds as long as you’re accompanied, and you are free to discharge yourself at any point if you feel this centre is no longer for you.” Vi’s whole body seems to relax. “There will be a huge amount of trust given to you, but it is based entirely on your ability to keep up with the program. The privileges you have are based on the agreement that you attend meetings, participate in therapy, group activities, et cetera.”

She nods, feeling Cait’s eyes on her. “Okay.”

“Now, the only reason this informal admission would change would be if you are deemed an immediate danger to yourself or someone else.” Grehan’s voice takes on a firmer tone, now, and Vi notices the way Cait’s shoulders straighten. “Is that clear? If we feel you or someone else is in imminent danger, we reserve the right to formally admit you into the program for however long we determine treatment is needed. You cannot discharge yourself during that time. You’ll earn back privileges by building that trust back up.”

Vi’s mouth suddenly feels very dry.

“Is that alright, Violet? Do you agree to these terms?”

You cannot discharge yourself during this time. 

Sounds an awful lot like Stillwater to me. 

“Vi,” Cait says gently, from beside her. “You don’t need to worry about that, okay? It isn’t going to happen, is it?”

Vi clears her throat, shakes memories of that place from her head. “No. Yes. That’s fine.”

“Alright, then.” Grehan smiles. “That’s that out of the way. Shall we get the paperwork sorted?”

Caitlyn’s eyes are still fixed on Vi. “Actually, would you mind if we stepped outside for five minutes first?” Vi’s eyes flick to Cait’s, questioning, but her partner just stands, extending a hand to her. “We won’t be long, doctor.”

Grehan’s eyes are knowing. “You can use the courtyard. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Chapter Text

The cool air hits Vi like a sigh of relief. She hadn’t realised how often she’d been holding her breath until now. The courtyard has emptied, and clouds are beginning to move in and block the sunlight, but the grass and flowerbeds are still vibrant, the water from the fountain still trickles delicately. She tries to take a deep breath in through her nose but the air won’t seem to come.

She almost forgets Caitlyn is there until she feels a hand on her shoulder. “Vi.”

It feels, suddenly, like an impossibly huge decision. Maybe not even one that she’s able to make. To admit herself into a place like this, with no idea what’s going to happen to her, with the threat of a–what did he call it?– formal admission hanging over her head… And, okay, fine, so this is a nice place. But she’s barely taken a fucking second to think about what treatment actually means. She struggled enough with the two therapy sessions she actually ended up going to, but how the hell is she supposed to even begin to participate in fucking art therapy? Group therapy?

No, this is too big. Too much. Too soon.

Caitlyn’s hand tightens on her shoulder. “Breathe, Vi.”

I am, she wants to snap, the response right there on her lips, but she can’t. The breaths that come are shallow and useless, shaking her body but bringing her lungs no relief.

They can pitch this to her however they like, with their big open hallways and unlocked doors and bright colours and incense but at the end of the day she’s still being institutionalised, right?

A sudden pang of homesickness and suddenly all Vi wants is to curl up in Cait’s bed and never leave the house again. 

I promise I’ll be better, she wants to beg. Just let me go back home .

“Tell me what’s going on,” Cait whispers. 

“I can’t–” She cuts herself off with a choked sound, biting her lip. How is she supposed to find the words to tell Cait how terrifying, how isolating, this place will feel without her? There’s no way to explain to Cait that, without her, everything feels so lonely. Colours fade. 

Way to sound fucking co-dependent. 

“Talk to me, Violet.”

How is she supposed to articulate the feeling of homesickness that cuts right to the core and maybe isn’t for a physical place after all but, maybe, maybe, the home she’s somehow built in Cait. And deeper still, hollower in her chest, the longing for a home that she used to have in Vander, in Milo and Claggor and… Powder. A homesickness that she can never cure. A hole that can’t be filled. And, despite the beauty of this place, if Cait isn’t here, that feeling’s only going to grow.

She searches around for words that will mean something, anything, without betraying how pathetic she feels and finally settles with: “I can’t do this… without you.”

Cait’s hand smoothes her hair away from her face, her expression soft. “I’m right here.”

“That’s not–” Her breathlessness sends a sharp pain through her ribs, still wrapped tightly and healing, kind of, and Vi nearly doubles over in pain. “That’s not what I–”

Cait guides Vi to a bench, gently tugs her until she’s sitting down, waits patiently for her to catch her breath. Vi feels as though she standing in a tornado, swept away unexpectedly by these feelings, these spells of hyperventilation that make her feel dizzy and exacerbate her wounds. All she wants is to rewind a week, back to when everything was fine and she didn’t have to worry about any of this. Actually, if she’s wishing, she’d rewind months. Years.

“I can’t, Cait,” she gasps. “Can’t stay here.”

She can’t bring herself to look her partner in the eyes. What will she see there, this time?

“You don’t like it?” Caitlyn’s voice is soft. She edges closer to Vi, setting a hand on her shaking knee. “Vi, that’s… Okay. That’s okay, baby, we can talk about that.”

“Why are we here, Cait?” Vi finally catches her breath enough to form a full sentence. Her eyes are pleading. “Can’t we just go home? Please. I just want to go home.”

She sounds like a child. She fucking knows she does, but she can’t help it. She feels like one.

Cait reaches out and takes her hand. “We’re here because you’re depressed and grieving and I think, maybe, kind of… suicidal?” Vi flinches at the word, but Cait only holds her hand tighter. “We’re here because you need help and I think this is place can support you better than I can. And we’re here because I love you.”

Vi blinks away tears, manages a breath – finally – in through her nose, out through her mouth. Cait pauses, watching her for a minute and mirroring the breathing until Vi finally feels her heart begin to stutter back into it’s regular rhythm.  

“We are not here,” Cait continues, her voice cautious, “because I am angry with you, or tired of you, or upset with you. We are not here because of anything other than care for your wellbeing. No ulterior motive, no secrets, nothing.” She reaches out to tuck a piece of hair back behind Vi’s ear. “Is that clear?”

Vi leans into her touch with a sigh. “Do you mean that?”

“With all my heart.” Cait smiles, softly. “Did I mention that I love you?”

“Maybe.”

For the first time in a long time, Vi closes the distance between them, and kisses her.

It isn’t just because she needs to feel close to Cait again, which she does. And it isn’t just because this feels like a goodbye, which it isn’t. It’s because she is filled with a sudden, overwhelming and absolutely inescapable surge of love. 

She doesn’t deserve it, this thing she has with Cait. She doesn’t deserve to feel so fucking loved by her, even when she’s ugly and broken and weak. 

But Cait does.

Cait deserves to be loved, even if sometimes it hurts Vi to show it to her. Cait deserves the fucking world. 

Vi tangles her fingers in Cait’s hair, tugging her closer, grounding herself. Cait’s lips are soft and somehow desperate against hers; the two of them crashing into each other like it’s the first time they’ve done this, the first time they’ve known each other like this. 

“Whatever you want,” Cait murmurs when she finally pulls back, her hands either side of Vi’s face. “If you want to go home, if you want to try and stay here, just for a little while… This is your decision, Vi. I promise.”

Looking into her eyes, Vi knows that Cait’s telling the truth. She guesses that’s what makes it so hard: knowing how desperately Cait wants her to say yes, and how she’ll still be there even if she says no. She’ll be hurt, sure, that Vi didn’t even try. But she’ll still be there if Vi tell she she wants to go home. 

But if she goes home, nothing will change. And she’s starting to think that, maybe, something has to. 

Might as well be her… right?

Chapter Text

It takes more courage than she has for Caitlyn to walk away.

She drags it out for longer than she has to, quizzing Doctor Grehan on the ins and outs of Violet’s days at the facility: where does she go if she has a problem? What procedures are in place if she feels the need to drink or run away or… worse? Where is the phone and precisely how quickly will somebody contact her if something goes awry?

By the end of it, it’s Vi herself that kisses Caitlyn gently and asks if she’ll fetch a bag of her things from the house. Caitlyn almost laughs. She has spent the day convincing Violet not to bolt back through the doors, and now here she is, suggesting she stay behind? Cait supposes it’s because if Vi came home to collect the things herself, she might not have it in her to come back again. 

How could Cait blame her?

Caitlyn traipses slowly back home through the winding city streets. She could have called for a taxi, but the weather is fair and she needs to clear her head. A few people nod to her, call out greetings, but nobody stops her. She has become easily recognisable around the city now: even those unfamiliar with the cities politics and her position know her as the woman with the eyepatch. The longer she spends with her disability, building the awareness back up again, improving her reflexes and coordination… the less self-conscious she feels. 

Still, it helps more when she has Vi by her side. Only with Vi does she allow her to stand on her left, in her blind spot, offering her the trust she affords no other. Only with Vi does her good eye scan it’s surroundings constantly for threats, for triggers; hyper-aware that it stands beside the only thing in her life worth protecting.

When she gets home, the house is eerily silent. She finds a bag and digs around in her wardrobe for clothes to send to Vi. She packs soft, loose-fitting clothes, and several of her own thick jumpers that she’s noticed Vi borrowing over the last few weeks. She’s surprised at how overwhelming it feels, choosing the only belongings Vi will have with her for a while.

Cait sits on the edge of the bed and stares at the open bag, willing herself not to cry.

The house is too quiet.

She calls Ekko. “She’s going to do it.”

“What? The rehab place?”

“Mm-hm.”

Ekko whistles. “You’re sure? She’s not just saying that?”

“No, she’s…” Cait swallows, guilt twinging. “She’s there, now.”

A pause. “Shit. Really?”

“I took her straight from the hospital. It was just supposed to be a tour, really, an introduction but, well…” She sighs. “It’s easier this way, rather than bringing her home first. The transition would be harder if she had to come and go back… right?”

Caitlyn doesn’t know why she’s so desperate for Ekko’s approval, for him to tell her she’s done the right thing.

“I mean, yeah.” She hears him huff a sigh of his own. “I know you wanted me to talk some sense into her the other day, Cait, but shit, I think I lost it with her, you know? She just…” He swears again, under his breath this time. “She hates herself, I think. How do you shake someone out of that shit without sending them spiralling harder?”

Cait clutches the phone tightly to her ear. Whispers, “I don’t know.”

“They’ll be able to help her there,” Ekko says, his voice more assured. “You’ve done so much for her, Cait, but these guys are professionals.” His voice softens. “You shouldn’t have had to do this alone for so long, you know? Someone’s gotta look out for you, too.”

“I’m fine,” she tells him. “I just… As long as Vi’s okay, I’ll be fine.”

Ekko hums. “What will you do, whilst she’s staying there?”

Cait hasn’t even thought about that yet. Her focus for the last few days – the last few months, if she’s being honest with herself – has been solely on keeping Vi safe. With her partner at the facility, she’d be echoing around this big old house on her own.

“I’ll find ways to keep myself busy.”

“You could call, you know.” Ekko clears his throat, suddenly awkward. “Or, hey, I’ll call you, maybe.”

“Alright.” She wonders if he can hear the smile in her voice. “That would be fine.”

“Cool.” A pause. “You’ll keep me updated on Vi?”

“Of course,” she promises.

“Thanks. Take care, Cait.”

“Bye, Ekko.”

A lump in her throat, she turns back to the task at hand. She’s squeezed in several outfits and, as an afterthought, she strips the blanket from their bed and packs that as well. She can deal without it for a few weeks if it means that Vi will be comfortable. She slips socks and underwear into the bag alongside lace-free shoes, upon the facilities request, and a blank notebook. She has a few lying around anyway, and she figures that, maybe, Vi might turn to writing – or scribbling – if she gets bored. 

With a trembling lip, she buckles the bag shut and places it at the foot of the bed. 

She can’t go back, not yet.

Going back means saying goodbye.

Instead, she unbuckles the bag, digs the blanket back out, and wraps it around her shoulders. Vi can have it later but, for now, Cait curls up inside it and lets herself finally cry.

Chapter Text

When Caitlyn has left to fetch her belongings, Grehan shows Vi to her room. They loop around a curved corridor with floor-length class windows. The corridor itself seems to curl around a small concrete outside area with seats organised sporadically and a collection of maybe thirty sad-looking potted plants. Vi doesn’t think much of it as she follows the doctor to the end of the hallway and through another set of double doors. 

Can’t wait to push open twenty sets of doors a day, she thinks, internally rolling her eyes as she feels a twinge of pain in her still-healing ribs.

Once they’re through the doors, there’s (what a surprise) another hallway. This one is wide, painted a light blue, and lined either side with a dozen white doors. Vi feels her stomach lurch. She half expects Doctor Grehan to pull out a large steel loop of keys, rattling them around until he finds the one for her cell and throws her inside. 

He doesn’t.

Instead, Grehan leads her down the hallway past doors that have pieces of paper pinned to the front: hand-written names decorated with flowers or scribbles or coloured paint spatters. He finally stops outside a blank door, nothing pinned to the outside, and leans past her to swing the door open.

“After you,” he says, gently. 

Vi steps tentatively into the room. It’s so much bigger than she expected. As she steps into the room she notices another door open to her left that leads into an en-suite bathroom as big as Cait’s back home. The main room has a wide window: locked, she notices briefly; a single bed, desk, wardrobe, two or three lamps on various surfaces that spill warm light into the room. Sure, everything is painted in varying shades of white, which does make it feel a little clinical, but hopefully Cait will bring something colourful to brighten the place up.

There’s a large whiteboard hung on the wall above the bed, with several magnetic pens attached to it. Someone has written ‘Welcome Newbie!’ in scrawled script. 

“We try to keep the decor as neutral as possible,” Grehan explains, leaning against the doorframe. “But you’re very welcome to make this place your own.”

Vi sits down on the edge of the bed, runs her hand over the soft white quilt. 

“I won’t be here long,” she murmurs.

“Of course,” the Doctor agrees. He steps into the room and moves to the window, absently straightening the curtains. “But we’ve found that creating a space that feels comfortable and familiar really supports our guests’ recovery.”

Vi hums. “How long do people stay for, usually?”

He meets her eyes. “Everybody is different. We suggest six weeks as a minimum because that gives us time to really get to know each person, address behaviours and thought patterns and put a really solid plan in place for their discharge. The average stay is probably two months. But some people stay longer, some only stay a few days.” He shrugs then, the movement somehow foreign to see on him. “The individual decides the journey, in the end.”

“Profound,” says Vi, deadpan.

He smiles. “I like to think so.” From his pocket, he produces a piece of paper, folded twice. “Your timetable, if you want to have a look?”

She takes it but doesn’t unfold it, not yet. “Alright.”

A pause. “How are you feeling, Violet?”

Her mouth feels suddenly very dry. “I… I think I just need a minute alone.”

Grehan nods, slowly. “Can I get you anything to eat or drink? Would you like to go to one of the relaxation rooms?”

She hasn’t got it in her to ask what the fuck a relaxation room is. “I’ll just… chill here, for a bit. If that’s okay."

“Of course it is.” Grehan straightens the curtains one last time and then nods; more, it seems, to himself than to anyone else. “It’s been a lot to take in for you, today. I myself have some plans to prepare if you’d prefer to take some time to yourself.”

“Did Cait say when she’d be back?” Vi hates how small her voice sounds. “With my stuff?”

“She did not,” says the doctor. “But I assure you, when she arrives at reception I will have someone show her straight to your room. Does that sound okay?”

She nods. “Okay. Yeah.” A beat, then: “Thanks.”

“You’re making an incredibly good decision for your own wellbeing, Violet,” says Grehan, turning back as he’s about to leave. “An incredibly brave decision, and one that your future self will thank you for.”

He turns and leaves before she gets the chance to say anything else.

Chapter Text

There are three imperfections on the wall opposite Vi’s bed. Two are scuff marks; small enough that anyone who wasn’t staring at the walls for long periods of time would miss them. They were probably made by someone brushing against the wall on their way to the wardrobe, maybe with arms full of clothes and bags as they unpacked their old life into this alien one. The third mark is less of a mark , really, and more of a… dent.

Vi lays on her belly on the bed and reaches across to run a calloused hand over the impression. It seems to be the almost perfect indentation of a fist, at just the right level for someone of Vi’s height to have sent their fist careening into the plaster. If she squints, she can just about see the outline of four knuckles. 

Someone has painted over it, she notices, but clearly nobody has gotten around to filling the hole in yet. She wonders if they’ll ever bother, or if this building is bound to hold so many scars that they don’t bother trying to hide them anymore.

Vi rolls from her stomach onto her back, closing her eyes against the sunlight that streaks in through the window. There’s a headache niggling insistently at her temples, now; a tremor in her hands that she can’t quite seem to shake off. She’s taken half an hour to lie down, to recuperate, but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference. There’s a restlessness buzzing through her that refuses to dissipate. 

She sits up, the movement so sudden it makes her head spin.

“Fuck,” she mutters to nobody in particular. 

When she felt like this back home, she’d be reaching for the hidden stashes of liquor or pulling on a coat to head to one of the few local bars that would still serve her. Now… Well, she doesn’t know what her options will be here. Slim to none, she reckons.

She presses two fingers to her temples, squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath.

She’s got to hold herself together, for Cait.

Remember what happened last time?

Vi bites the inside of her cheek. As much as she hates herself for admitting it, a few broken ribs is a small price to pay for the way her brain quiets down after a drink or two.

“This is cosy.” Vi looks up to find Caitlyn in the doorway, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder, hair a little tangled from the breeze outside. Cait offers Vi a smile, and it’s almost entirely genuine and only a little tentative. It eases the knot in Vi’s stomach. “Hi, baby.”

“Hi,” she manages.

Cait steps into the room slowly, looking around with hopeful eyes. “I like it a lot.”

Vi exhales, ignoring how shaky her breath feels. “Yeah.”

Cait lets the bag slip from her shoulder and leaves it at the foot of the desk, moving to sit beside Vi on the bed. “Are you settling in okay?”

Vi shrugs. “I don’t know that I’ve done much settling so far. Just been, kind of, you know. Thinking.”

“Dangerous,” Cait quirks, and Vi smiles, and for a second it’s easy to forget where they are; what lies ahead. “I spoke with a receptionist. She said you probably had your timetable from Doctor Grehan.”

Vi wordlessly retrieves the timetable from the desk, passing it to her. 

Caitlyn unfolds the paper. “They say you don’t have to worry about the timetable for today. Have you had a look?”

“Not yet,” Vi murmurs, shuffling closer. “I was waiting for you.”

Cait hums. She holds the timetable in one hand, studying it intently, whilst her other snakes around Vi’s waist and tugs her a little closer. Vi finds herself leaning against Cait’s shoulder, letting her eyes drift shut. She clasps her hands together, willing them to stop shaking. 

“I bet you’ll be good at art therapy,” Cait murmurs, a smile toying at her lips. “You can be very creative when you try.”

Vi scoffs. “Art was always Powder’s thing.”

Cait shrugs. “Maybe it runs in the family.”

Vi swallows, digs her fingernails into her palms. “What the fuck is art therapy anyway? Bunch of losers painting their traumas?”

Cait’s grip on her waist tightens, just a little. “Guess you’ll just have to turn up and find out.”

Vi huffs. “Hm.”

With a sigh so soft Vi barely notices, Cait sets the piece of paper down on the bed and shifts her body to face her girlfriend. Gently, she reaches out and takes one of Vi’s hands in her own. “All I ask, Violet, is that you try . Even the things you think are stupid. You never know if they’ll…” She pauses, frowning. “Your hands are shaking.”

Vi jerks her hand away from Cait’s. “I’m just cold.”

There’s a flicker of frustration on Cait’s face that Vi doesn’t miss. “It isn’t cold.”

“Isn’t it?” Vi shivers just to prove a point, but it’s just a pantomime now. She skirts away from Cait, standing and moving to the window. “I don’t know, cupcake. Maybe I’m just nervous.”

“You can be honest with me, you know.”

Vi meets her eyes, pleading. “Cait.”

Cait’s gaze locks with hers and, for a moment, Vi is sure she’ll push it further; that between Cait’s frustration and her own short temper they’ll end up arguing and parting on the kind of terms that might cause Vi to plant another fist-shaped hole in the wall. But Cait just sighs and shakes her head, the movement gentle. “Do you want to see what I packed for you? Check in case I missed anything?”

Vi could cry with relief. She cradles her shaking hands against her chest. Whispers, “Yes.”

Caitlyn unbuckles the bag and begins to unpack, showing each item to Vi before moving to the wardrobe to tidy them away. Vi settles back against the pillows, sitting cross-legged on the mattress and feeling herself soothed by Cait’s rhythmic movements. Vi’s heart swells as she begins to realise that most of the clothes Cait has packed belong to her, not Vi.

“What are you going to wear?” she asks, tilting her head in amusement as Cait packs yet another one of her own sweaters away. “Now that I have all of your clothes, I mean.”

“Shut up.” Cait flashes her a look. “I’ll be here all the time. We can trade when you get bored.”

Vi grins. “I was looking forward to you arriving in nothing but one of my vests.”

“Shut up.”

Blushing furiously, Cait finishes unpacking by tugging out the final item in the bag: the large blanket the two of them usually had spread across their bed. Vi’s smile fades. “Cait,” she says, gently. “I don’t like the idea of having everything from home, here. You still live there, you know. You need pieces of home, too.”

“I know.” Cait gestures for Vi to stand up from the bed and, when she does, lays the blanket down across the top of the white quilt. It adds a burst of colour that the room desperately needed: patchwork fabric of blue and purple and gold. “Don’t worry. I… took a piece.”

With the blanket laid out on the bed, Vi feels a smile begin to grow on her face.

The blanket, which had been a large king-size, now just covered the sides of the single bed. Along one edge, the seam is jagged, and Vi realises with delight that Cait had taken a knife to it and split the entire thing in half. 

She can’t help the laugh that bubbles up in her throat. “You cut it in half?”

Cait smirks, standing back to admire her work. “Well, now we both get a piece of home.”

“Cait.” Vi throws herself into her arms, burying her face in Cait’s shoulder. “But you love that blanket.”

She feels Cait shrug against her. “Ah, I can sew it back together. It’s just a blanket, and I’ve been meaning to practice my sewing anyway.”

Vi clings to her even tighter. 

“And for the record,” Cait adds, her lips brushing Vi’s cheek. “I love you more.”

Chapter Text

She doesn’t remember when the shaking progresses into fever. Doesn’t remember the exact moment that the sickly feeling becomes overwhelmingly strong, that her eyesight begins to blur, that her teeth begins to chatter. She has a vague kind of memory of Cait’s arms lowering her to the ground, cold hands pressing to her forehead. 

At some point, she thinks she hears Cait crying. 

“Don’t cry,” she tries to say, but the noise that comes out of her mouth is more of a stifled moan. The pain in her stomach is enough to make her double over, but she’s… already on the floor, somehow, and her ribs , fuck, her ribs might as well be caving in all over again. 

“The first few days are the hardest,” somebody – a man – is saying, the voice floating somewhere nearby. “You just have to push through.”

Push through .

“Why is it always– ah –” Vi breaks off as pain flares through her stomach, spiking up through her ribcage and knocking her breathless. She swears under her breath, still not able to keep her eyes open for longer than a couple of seconds. “Why is everything always so much–so much–” Fuck . “So. Much. Effort .”

A soft chuckle, then, and Vi wants to keep her eyes open just to see who she should be swinging a punch at. But then the pain flares again and she feels suddenly as if she might pass out or vomit, nausea swimming in her throat. 

“Nothing easy is ever worth doing,” says the voice.

Vi’s about to tell him to go to hell, before the pain flares again and she promptly passes out.

* * *

Is this supposed to happen? What if she…?

Wouldn’t it be better to just give her something?

She’s in pain. Doctor – can’t you do something for the pain?

No – I… I won’t. 

…She needs me.

* * *

Vi slips in and out of consciousness.

Sometimes, she thinks she sees Caitlyn at her bedside, curled up in the big armchair, prodding nurses with persistent questions, taking Vi’s hand in hers and stroking her thumb over her knuckles. Sometimes, she thinks she hears Cait talking to her. Things like, “You’re doing so good, baby,” and “Just a little while longer. Keep fighting.”

But always, in Vi’s fleeting lucid moments, Cait is gone.

* * *

When she eventually wakes, it’s to the sharp sting of a needle in her arm and the background chorus of hospital machines. Standing by the foot of her bed, Grehan is holding a clipboard full of paperwork in his hands, flicking intently through pages of notes. He must notice her waking up, blearily rubbing the crusts of sleep from her eyes, but if he does, he doesn’t pay her any attention. 

“Where am I?” Her throat feels like sandpaper. “Where’s Cait?”

“We moved you to the medical wing,” says Grehan, not looking up from the clipboard. “Yes, I know there’s a hospital next door, but we have excellent facilities here; nurses that specialise in addiction and withdrawal.”

Vi sets a hand on the bed; notices that someone has brought the blue-purple patchwork blanket from her bedroom and tucked it across her legs.

“Addiction? I…” She moves to push herself up in the bed, squirming against the pain in her stomach to sit upright and face the doctor. There’s no Cait here, now; rushing to prop her girlfriend up with soft pillows, itching to help. This doctor won’t even look at her. “ Doctor . I don’t have any… I mean, I’m not addicted to anything.”

That earns her some eye contact as Grehan shoots her a look that could be pity or disapproval. “Well, on that I beg to differ.”

She scowls at him. Her mouth tastes foul and bitter. “Where’s Cait?”

“She’s been here with you,” he tells her, flipping a page. “Though I asked her to leave before you woke up. These next couple of days will be important for you, for your recovery.”

There’s a sinking feeling in Vi’s stomach. What if she doesn’t come back ?

Instead of asking that question, too afraid of the answer, she says, through gritted teeth, “What do you mean addiction ?”

“We took some background from your partner upon your admission,” Grehan explains, finally setting the clipboard down at the end of the hospital bed and taking a seat in the armchair facing Vi. “She informed us of your alcohol dependency. Since your injuries required you to be on a decent amount of painkillers we figured it was only a matter of time before the withdrawal kicked in. But you’re through the worst of it now, so that’s something.”

“I’m not–”

“If you’re going to insist you’re not an addict, you can save it.” The smile playing on his lips only partly softens the blow of his words. “I’ve heard it all before.”

“You know,” she says, stifling a groan as she shifts position. “You were a lot nicer yesterday.”

“Hm.” He meets her eyes with a smile. “In my experience, being nice at this stage of treatment isn’t actually what my patients need.” He stands up, clapping his hands together in a way that makes Vi wince. “And what you need right now, Violet, is a brisk walk.”

She looks down at herself: the wires snaking up her arms, the bandages wrapped tightly around her ribs, the ash-grey hue to her skin. “You serious?”

Grehan flashes her a charming smile. “I’ll have someone bring in some soup. Once you’ve eaten, you and I are going for a walk. Time to wake up, Violet.”

Chapter Text

Vi can’t be entirely sure how much time has passed since she arrived at Rosewater Rehabilitation. All she knows is, in that time, the weather has transitioned from partly-sunny, brisk autumn air to grey, cloudy skies. The second she stands up from the bed in the medical bay, she feels the cold before the nausea even hits. Steadying herself under Grehan’s watchful stare, she strips the blanket – now fraying slightly down the side Caitlyn has cut – and wraps it around her shoulders. 

In other circumstances, she might be embarrassed to be walking around wrapped in half a patchwork quilt. But it’s too cold to care. 

Plus , she reasons, I am on a fucking psych ward. 

I don’t think anyone cares.

In other circumstances, she might have also fought the good doctor on his decision to drag her out of bed and into the cold. But, as much as she hates to admit it, her legs ache from disuse, and she’s sick of the smell of disinfectant, and really, how long could she have laid up there, anyway? The sooner she’s out and about and over this withdrawal bullshit, the sooner she’ll be able to see Cait again. 

That’s all that matters. 

The icy breeze knocks the breath from her as the doctor pushes open the door that leads to the gardens. Vi shrinks back into the doorway, wrapping the blanket even more tightly around her shoulders. 

“Come on, Violet,” Grehan says, cheerfully, holding the door open. “Ten minutes, I promise. It’ll do you good.”

“Don’t you have other patients to bother?” she grumbles, stepping reluctantly out into the cold. 

Grehan chuckles. “I’ve got a timetable just like you, young Violet. And right now, you are granted the pleasure of my company.” He glances at his watch. “For the next hour or so.”

“Hour?” She almost groans. “I thought you said we’d be out here ten minutes .”

He waves a hand dismissively, leading the way across the grass to a winding cobbled path. “We can take our conversation somewhere warmer once you’ve got some fresh air.”

Too cold to think of a witty response, she pulls the blanket tightly over her nose and mouth for warmth and trudges after him. 

They’ve come out of a different exit this time, she notices, because she doesn’t remember seeing these gardens before. The grass stretches out ahead of them, the edge of the garden framed by high bushes and thick forrest. She wonders, briefly, what’s on the other side of the wall of trees. 

Not that she’s planning to escape, or anything.

…But it’s good to know your options. 

They walk past flowerbeds, though the only flowers that seem to be sprouting at this time of year are a handful of blue-grey perennials. Still, the garden’s well-kept and the greenery – the ferns and climbing ivy and lavender sprigs – are pretty, she guesses. 

“How are you feeling?” asks Grehan, digging his hands in his pockets. 

Vi clears her throat. “Like shit.”

“Well, I think you’re past the worst of it. If that’s any consolation.”

She resists the urge to roll her eyes. “What time is it?”

It’s strange. These last few months, time has seemed to blur into one long day, an everlasting hour. This is the first time she can remember actually caring about how much of it she’s wasted. 

He glances at his wristwatch. “One thirty. I’d like you to take part in your timetabled activities for the rest of the day, if you feel up to it.” When she shoots him a look, he lets out a low laugh. “Alright. I’d like you to participate even though you don’t feel like it. Nothing too strenuous. I want you to go to group therapy, then with the rest of the patients to the recreation room. Maybe a creative writing class later this evening.”

She scoffs at that. Can’t help herself. “How is creative writing supposed to–”

“The beauty of all of this, Violet,” says Grehan, “is that you don’t know what good any of it does until you start doing it.”

She hums. “Can I see Cait?”

The doctor pauses in walking, stops the two of them by a large willow tree; it’s branches are mostly bare, the last few leaves close to falling. She tightens her grip on her blanket-cloak and watches her own breath fog out in clouds in front of her. “I’m not usually in the habit of making deals, Violet, but I’ll do you one just this once.” His gaze hardens. “If you participate in your timetabled activities this afternoon, I’ll organise for your partner to visit this evening if she’s free.”

Vi scowls. “I feel like shit, and you want me to sit in some group therapy and talk about my feelings?”

He hums distractedly, beginning to walk again. 

Vi shoots him the finger as he walks ahead.

“Well,” he says, slowing slightly to allow her to catch up. They fall into step beside each other. “Aside from basic introductions, I’m quite sure you can get away with the bare minimum in today’s group therapy. The first one is usually more listening than anything else…” Vi bites the inside of her cheek, unconvinced. “And the writing group: well, if you’re worried about people reading your writing, you needn’t. Anything you produce in that group is personal unless you’d like to share.”

Not likely, she thinks. But knowing that there isn’t going to be some grand performance afterwards does settle the knot of anxiety in her stomach. “Fine. I play nice for the afternoon and I earn visitation rights, yeah?”

Grehan shakes his head, a smile playing on his lips. “You know, the second you stop thinking of this place as a prison, you might actually begin to like it here.”

Vi scoffs but says nothing. They can dress this place up as much as they like but, at the end of the day, the mere fact that she doesn’t want to be here makes it feel like Stillwater. 

Still , she reminds herself, we’re here for Cait.

For now, that would have to be enough.

Chapter Text

Well, thinks Vi, scanning her eyes around the room. This is the fucking weirdest thing I’ve ever done.

There are eight of them, plus their counsellor, a tall woman with beads in her hair named Feather, of all the fucking names. When she introduced herself, Vi had to bite back the urge to laugh. Everyone else seemed well-acquainted with the woman, though. She didn’t get the vibe that they liked her, but they were tolerating her either way.

Vi sits between a plain-looking woman in her late forties and a big guy with face tattoos that must be nearly twice her height. He’s so tall that, even sitting down at one of the small plastic chairs, he’s taller than Vi would be standing. Sitting directly opposite Vi is a girl around her age with a halo of bushy orange hair, tangled and cut haphazardly to stick out in funny angles. She has heavy eyeliner, smudged carelessly, and an expression that suggests she’d rather be anywhere but here.

Vi can relate. But she hates the way the girl’s eyes keep drawing back to her. She’s seen that look before, back at Stillwater. That look says, fresh meat.

Still. She can handle a little unwanted attention.

Vi doesn’t quite know why she feels sick with nerves. Out of everything, this should be easy. Right? Sitting in a circle with a bunch of strangers talking about fucking feelings. How hard can it be?

So, why does everything in her scream at her to run?

“Let’s begin by checking in,” says Feather, wide-eyes skimming each face before landing on the big guy with the face tattoos. “We’ll do colours today. Describe how you’re feeling using a colour, Kride, and remember: there are no wrong answers.”

Vi rolls her eyes. Nobody notices.

The big guy–Kride–looks down at his hands. For a second Vi thinks he isn’t going to answer–feels a familiar swell of camaraderie–but then he says, “Maybe… green.”

His voice is so deep it almost hurts to listen to.  There’s a moment of expectant quiet before Feather prompts, “Because?”

“Calm,” says Kride, clearly a man of few words. “Peace.”

“That’s great , Kride,” gushes Feather, running that keen gaze around the room and nodding enthusiastically. “Really perceptive. Thank you.” She turns her expression to the girl around Vi’s age and Vi could swear she sees Feather’s face sour a little before she masks it with a smile. “Sola. What about you?”

“Gee, Feather. Thanks for asking.” Sola’s voice is dripping in sarcasm. She runs a hand through her frizz of orange hair, leaning back in the chair and scuffing her shoe with vigor against the carpet. “I’m feeling fucking red today. Ask me why.”

Vi’s curious eyes flit between Sola and their counsellor, but Feather somehow manages to keep a neutral expression. “Watch your language, Sola. But of course–feel free to elaborate.”

Vi holds her breath. 

“I’m feeling red today because I have been moved to formal admission for something that wasn’t even my fucking fault. How’s that? Honest enough for you?” She kicks her foot against the carpet again, the sound grating. “You fuckers tell us to be honest and then when we are you lock us up like crazy people.” Then, she raises her gaze and locks her manic eyes with Vi’s. “Careful, new girl, Trust nobody. They're just waiting for you to slip up so they can take away your privileges.” Sola drops her gaze back to her hands, picks at her fingernails as her eyes begin to well up. “It’s been six fucking months. How much longer ?”

The room is silent. Vi notices other patients glancing down awkwardly, avoiding Sola’s fiery glare. A couple of them roll their eyes, fed up with her bullshit. Vi can’t drag her own eyes away from the girl, feeling the anger radiate off her in waves.

Sola reminds Vi of herself.

She hates it.

“Sola,” says Feather, her voice careful but firm. “This is something we can talk about in your one-to-one, okay?”

Sola waves a hand dismissively, as though she could care less, but Vi can see the pain in her expression. She recognises it. Something within her sparks at Sola’s outburst. Something within her seems to nudge her and say, That will be you .

“Violet?” Sola is saying, and Vi realises she’s zoned out and the woman has been speaking. Feather meets her vacant gaze with a warm one. “Would you like to share your colour for today? We’d all really love to hear it.”

That will be you .

She glances from Sola to Feather.

Caitlyn’s voice, now, rings in her head. Come on, Vi. You promised you’d try.

“No, I don’t…” She stands up, chair scraping backwards, ignoring the heat that rushes to her cheeks as everyone’s eyes snap to her. “I, uh. I’m not doing this.”

Her heart thuds loudly in disagreement. This is one fucking afternoon, she screams at herself internally. One afternoon to get through so that you can see Cait again. And you can’t even get past the awkward introductions?

But she can’t.

She can’t.

It’s too much.

It’s not just the awkward introductions, the describe how you’re feeling using a fucking colour analogy, it’s whatever the fuck comes after this. It’s what Sola said: what if they’re just getting her to talk so that they can incriminate her, lock her up for saying the wrong thing. She can’t be like Sola. She can’t be here for six months .

She catches Sola’s eye as she brushes past toward the door. The girl is watching her with a slow smile growing on her face. 

Bile rises in her throat.

As Vi pushes through the doors into the hallway, she hears Feather calling after her. She ignores her, gathering speed as she breaks into a run down the corridor, slamming into the doors that lead to the garden. The cold air knocks the wind from her and she gasps, doubled over, as her breath clouds out in front of her. Voices play loudly and on a loop in her head.

She feels like she’s going crazy.

Like she really does belong here. 

Caitlyn’s voice; ever soft, ever understanding. You promised.

Vander’s, as clear as day. Don’t give up, kiddo. She still needs you.

A sudden vision: Jinx, snapping at voices that aren’t there, pressing hands against her ears to block out the overwhelming noise. Vi wants to sob at how close she feels to her sister; not in the way she ever wanted to, but it’s a sick kind of relief to feel the same pain, if nothing else. 

Powder’s voice, drowning out the rest. Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me. I need you.

Vi drops to her knees in the grass and screams.

Chapter Text

Approximately twenty-one minutes after Caitlyn receives a phone call from Rosewater Rehabilitation informing her that its probably best not to visit this evening, she is standing at the facility’s reception desk. Demanding to speak to her girlfriend. 

If they were so insistent on her not visiting, something had to be wrong with Vi. Right?

And Caitlyn made a promise.

“I’ll have to speak to Doctor Grehan,” the receptionist is stuttering, shrinking under Caitlyn’s glare. “He, uh, he is the doctor in charge of Violet’s care, and he’ll–”

“I know,” Cait interrupts, her voice harsher than she intends it. “I know who Doctor Grehan is, and I also know that he assured me I could see her within reasonable visiting hours for as long as she is informally admitted.” She grits her teeth. “I think you’ll agree, the hour that I am visiting is reasonable. If you are unable to let me through those doors, I suggest you call Doctor Grehan here. I should like to speak with him.”

She’ll do more than speak with him if anything has happened to Vi, but the receptionist has the decency to look frightened and begin dialling a number on the wired telephone. 

She paces the small, pleasant waiting area.

Flowers in vases line the windowsills. She itches to sweep them from where they sit, shatter them on the clean, tiled floor. Until she has Vi in her arms, she will be fighting th urge to break every good thing she sees. 

Maybe this is how Vi feels, too. 

“Ah, Caitlyn,” says Doctor Grehan, from the doorway. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“You are?” Caitlyn snaps, taking several long steps towards him. “From the sounds of it, you’d rather I stayed away.”

The doctor runs a hand over his face, a hint of tiredness in his eyes. His voice remains professional: “Yes, I can see how you’d feel that way.” He takes a step back, holding the door open. “Let’s talk in my office?”

Caitlyn’s jaw tightens. “I want to see Vi.”

“Of course.” His voice is gentle. “But first I’d like the opportunity to explain a few things.” He meets her gaze. “If that’s okay.”

Fuck . It’s hard to argue with someone when they’re being reasonable.

“Fine,” she says, curtly. “Quickly.”

She passes through the door he holds open and leads the way herself down the hall. She’s got a photographic memory and even if she didn’t , she’d still be reluctant to let this man lead her to his office when she’s this furious with him.

He said she could visit whenever . After that phone call, Cait is finding it hard to see him as anything other than a liar.

She lets herself into the office and takes a seat in the chair opposite his desk, drumming her fingers impatiently against her knee as she listens to him following quietly behind her, shutting the door, taking a seat at the desk.

“Thank you for speaking with me,” Doctor Grehan says. 

When Cait meets his eyes she is annoyed to see that his expression is quite genuine. 

She says nothing. 

“I want you to know, the suggestion that you might not visit this evening was only intended to be just that. A suggestion.” Cait opens her mouth to respond but the doctor continues speaking: “You are, of course, free to visit Violet whenever you’re able to. However, I do remember telling you about the first few days and how visiting can make the transition a little more… difficult.”

“I recall,” says Cait, fighting to keep her voice steady. “I respect that, doctor, I do. But the last time I saw Vi, she was going through withdrawal. She was very…” Cait pushes the images of Vi, vomiting and shaking and sweating, to the back of her mind. “...Sick. She was sick. You told me that you had it handled and I believed you. You told me you expected she’d begin her timetabled activities today, that she’d be up for seeing me, and then – then I get a phone call telling me it’s best if I don’t come .” She breathes deeply in through her nose, exhales through pursed lips. “So, I suppose what I’m really asking you here is what the hell happened to Vi today?”

Grehan sighs. “Violet had her first group therapy today.” A pause. “Or, she would have, if she’d have stayed for it.” 

Cait physically felt her stomach drop. “She left ?”

“Oh, no, no, you misunderstand.” The doctor flashes her a tight, but reassuring, smile. “Violet is still on the premises. She didn’t leave the facility, but she did not participate in group therapy. Our counsellor, Feather, said she didn’t make it past the introductions.”

Feather? Cait bit her tongue. She can only imagine what Vi thought of being bossed around by a woman named Feather .

When she speaks, her voice is soft. “Where is she now?”

“She has returned to her room, at my request. But she’s… restless.” Another sigh. Grehan leans forward. “Caitlyn. The transition is not easy, and if Vi’s initial experience here has been poor: with the withdrawal and now her first group therapy not going well… Well, it is wholly expected that she will want to leave. Seeing you…” He purses his lips. His eyes are kind. Understanding. “Do you know what I’m trying to say?”

Cait bites her lip. “You’re saying that if she sees me, she’ll want to leave?”

“As you know,” Grehan says, softly, “she would be well within her right to. Like I said, these first few days, first few weeks, if I’m being honest, can be a real transition. We get a lot of patients deciding to leave. I know that neither of us want that for Vi right now.”

Cait leans back in the chair. He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. If Vi even has a small part of her that wants to run right now – and Cait knows it’ll be more than a small part – then seeing Cait is just going to tip her over the edge. 

But how can she go home, knowing that Vi is upset?

“She doesn’t cope well.” Cait’s voice is hardly louder than a whisper. She clears her throat, tries again. “She doesn’t cope well when she’s upset.”

Grehan nods, slowly. “We can help support her.”

“She’ll be, I don’t know…” Cait swallows. “She’ll want to drink or, or… start a fight with someone or something.”

“She won’t be alone, Caitlyn,” Grehan assures her, his voice gentle. “She has a team of people just waiting to help her.”

She doesn’t need a team of people, she wants to say. She needs me.

“Let me see her,” she says, her voice coming out much stronger than she feels. “If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but… I know what she needs. Please.”

Grehan considers it. There’s the ghost of a frown on his face, a tightness, but he nods, once. “Alright. If you think you can get through to her, I’m willing to give it a try.”

“I can,” she says, with more certainty than she feels. She stands up, hands shaking. “Let’s go.”

Chapter Text

Vi knows that she isn’t good enough.

This much has never been a secret.

She has known since the moment she found her parents’ bodies on that damn bridge that she isn’t good enough. Someone faster, bigger, stronger, would have been able to stop it from happening. 

So, she became faster. Bigger. Stronger.

Then she holds her baby sister’s face in her hands and calls her a jinx, blames her for something that, again, could only have been Vi’s fault. It was her job she led them on, after all; the one that set the wheels in motion. She could be faster, bigger, stronger but she’s still somehow not good enough. She’s angry and defiant and stubborn. Some things can’t be changed by training hard or bulking out. Sometimes people just have badness inside of them.

I thought maybe you could love me like you used to, Jinx had said. Even though I’m… different.

A better person, a good person, would have been able to. A good person wouldn’t have been so desperate for the version of her sister that she lost that she couldn’t help but reject the one still here. She loved Jinx, but she loved her wrong. She loved her with the hope that if she was loved enough then she might, somehow, be Powder again. 

How many times has she let down the people she loves? Sometimes, late at night, she’ll try to count. But it’s too many, the casualties too high, and the anxiety pounds through her veins before she can ever find a definitive number. 

Instead, she lands on a simple, well-evidenced conclusion. Not good enough.

So, of course it’s to be expected that she isn’t good enough for this place, either. She supposes, in a funny kind of way, maybe you have to be worthy of redemption to be redeemed. Maybe some people are just a little too far gone. Recovery would be long and painful and difficult and what’s the point, really, if she’s just the same person she’s always been underneath it all?

You can paint over the mould but it’ll always still be there; growing, festering.

Ruining everything. 

She goes back to her room eventually, after some coaxing by Doctor Grehan, and the fact that her knees are beginning to go numb from the cold. If she were any less exhausted, she might not have listened, but she’s screamed herself sore. Patients press their faces up against the windows. She catches a glimpse of Sola, infuriatingly smug, behind the glass. 

Once she’s back inside her room, it begins to rain. 

There’s a tiredness creeping in behind her eyes, a heaviness to her movements and, although she’s itching to punch something, she doesn’t know if she’s got the energy to actually do it. She sits at the desk in her room and stares absently out of the window. Wonders if it’d make things easier to just run away.

It would hurt Cait, she knows that. But isn’t she hurting Cait already?

Shouldn’t she just do everyone a favour, save them all the worry, and leave?

It might be days before she gets the chance to see Cait again, anyway. She’s ruined it before she even started. Couldn’t even make it through ten minutes of fucking group therapy without causing a scene. 

She barely realises she’s crying until she feels the tears begin to seep through the fabric of her jumper. She brings a hand up to her face. How’s it possible to cry without even realising? I really do belong in a psych ward. She presses the heels of her palms into her eyes, body shaking, and wills herself to stop, stop, stop. 

Maybe Sola is right, she thinks, tiredly, hearing a sob slip from her lips. Maybe they’re just waiting for me to say the wrong thing, anyway. Waiting for the chance to admit me, lock me up and…

“You look like you’re thinking far too hard,” says a soft voice from the doorway. “We both know that’s dangerous.”

Her heart lurches. Hands still pressed to her eyes, sobs still wracking her body, she manages to say, “Cait?”

Cait's arms are around her in a second. She breathes in her scent and tries not to fall apart but it’s practically impossible as Cait shifts her into her arms. Vi buries her face in Cait’s jumper and feels her girlfriend’s hands combing through her hair, soothing kisses planted on the top of her head, strong arms wrapped around her like a promise. 

“I thought I wouldn’t be able to see you,” croaks Vi, her voice muffled against Cait’s chest. “I thought I… I thought I ruined it and…”

Cait hushes her. “You didn’t ruin anything, baby.”

“I did.” She pulls back, meeting Cait’s gaze finally. “Cait, I had a really–” She heaves a sniff. “A fucking easy job to this afternoon and I… I couldn’t–couldn’t even–”

Cait takes Vi’s face in her hands. She’s kneeling beside the chair, Vi realises. She’d barely registered where Cait was after she’d entered the room. 

Cait’s fingers are warm, soft, as she smooths the tears from Vi’s cheeks and traces her jaw with her thumb. “You’re doing so well, Vi. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you. You tried today, and you know that’s all I ever ask of you, right? That you try?”

“Trying isn’t good enough.” Vi stands, rubbing furiously at her still-weeping eyes as she moves towards the window. “Cait. How do I always manage to fuck everything up?”

Behind her, she hears Cait shifting, moving to stand beside her. Cait leans against the window, arms crossed over her chest, fixing a concerned gaze on her face. “Baby, you’ve been through so much. Could you give yourself a break from all the... self-hate for just a moment?” She closes the space between them, takes Vi’s tight fists in her own hands and uncurls them, running a soothing touch over her knuckles. “You were bound to have moments like these. What matters most is that you don’t give up.”

She can’t hold it in any longer.

“Can we go home now?” Vi sobs. “Cait, I can’t do this. I’m not good enough.”

Cait pulls her into a tight embrace and Vi feels like Cait’s arms might be the only thing holding her together.

“Oh, Violet. I’m not here to take you home, baby,” Cait whispers into her hair. “I’m here to convince you to stay.”

Chapter Text

It’s barely three in the afternoon. Rain slides gently down the glass of Violet’s bedroom window. It has taken over an hour for her tears to run dry. 

Cait debates it for only a second, and then decides that she preferred Vi’s tears to the numb expression on her face now. The last time she saw Vi look this drained was when she found her after she lost Jinx. She’d looked – well, the only word Cait could find to describe her was… hollow.

That look on her face, the dullness in her eyes; watching Vi now is as painful as watching her drink, watching her fight, watching her cry.

“Baby,” Cait says, gently. “Talk to me.”

Vi sits on the bed, facing the window, her back leaning against the wall. She is tracing the outline of a dent in the plaster with her finger. Cait frowns at the mark – has someone punched through the wall? – but bites her tongue. Her girlfriend’s expression is distant, vacant. Her cheeks are still red, tears still drying by her chin. She says nothing.

Cait clears her throat.

She doesn’t know what to say.

There are several things she’d like to. She’d like to drop to her knees and take Vi’s hands in hers and beg her, force her to respond, be truthful and raw and hurtful. She wants to say, Vi, you’re scaring me. Look at me. Say something, for fuck’s sake. Tell me I’m doing the right thing. Tell me you’ll love me regardless, even if what I’m going to do will hurt you. Please, tell me that everything will be okay, for once. I need someone to tell me that, too, Vi.

Instead, she says, “You’re doing so well, Violet. I’m so… I’m so proud of you.”

The words, a comfort in her head, sound hollow when she says them aloud. Cait wrings her hands together, moves to sit beside Vi on the bed, but leaves a good amount of space between them. Her heart is drumming ferociously in her chest. Her brain repeats it’s desperate mantra that if she says the wrong thing, she could ruin all of Vi’s tentative progress.

She feels shaky, uncertain. Out of control. 

Sometimes Cait is surprised by the person she is today.

For most of her life, she’d felt like a follower. 

She could trail after Jayce, obsessed with his ambition, and fawn over her father and his kind optimism. She could stand beside her mother, head tilted up towards her lofty success, and stumble after the other children her age, desperate to fit in with their games. 

And as she grew, she wondered if she’d ever feel in control, or whether that was something made for other people, not her. She wondered if she would always be the one being told what to do, following behind, rather than her own person.  

It was only after she met Vi for the first time that she finally felt some inkling of the control she’d desperately craved. It shouldn’t have felt that way, really. For all her snark and frustration, she still needed Vi to lead her through the undercity; needed to rely on someone else’s expertise rather than her own. Her mother’s death, though it cut through her like a knife, brought a different kind of control. No longer the fun kind of agency, but a necessary burden to bare.

And yet, somehow, being with Vi this past year… Cait has never felt less in control in her life.

Every second of every day it’s like there’s a cold hand wrapped around her heart. It’s impossible to know what to do, to know how to help, and with each passing minute she can feel her girlfriend drifting further away. All those years Cait fought to be the author of her own life and now, now that Vi is… 

Well. Cait hasn’t felt in control in a long time.

She feels weak, and desperate, and alone.

And it takes everything in her, every last ounce of strength, to stay standing, to put Vi first, to fight to figure this out. She doesn’t know how many more days, how many more hours, she can keep doing this. 

“Say something, Vi.” Her voice breaks when she says her name, and Vi’s eyes finally snap up to hers. “I’m…” Cait searches for the right words. “...Worried about you.”

Vi’s lips twitch into something like a scowl. “There’s nothing to say.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Cait whispers, shifting closer. “I think there’s a lot you need to say, Vi.”

“I’ll stay,” she says, and it’s so sudden that Cait is shocked, momentarily, into silence. Vi meets her eyes, her expression tired. “I don’t think there’s anything else I can do, Cait. I’ll stay because I know it’s important to you and… I…”

She trails off. Cait doesn’t want to know the end of the sentence. She cups Vi’s cheek with her hand, but Vi doesn’t look up. Her eyes flutter closed, the ghost of a frown on her lips. Cait’s only comfort is the way her girlfriend leans into the touch. 

“I love you,” whispers Cait.

It doesn’t feel like enough.

Chapter Text

Vi has always had somewhat of an issue with authority.

She likes to think, all things considered, she’s earned the right to be suspicious of people telling her what to do. Even now, when the lines are a little… blurrier, there’s still a hot red flush of anger that rises the second somebody tries to point her in the right direction.

It’s easier when there’s a uniform: the peanut parade, the damn Stillwater guards… Here, the ‘doctors’ wear jumpers and loose fitting trousers and have beads in their fucking hair, so it’s easier to forget - but they’re just the same as the rest. 

To them, she’s just a number. Just another ‘patient’ to push through the system. 

She knows it. 

She’s glad the flare of anger is back. Yesterday, the numbness was overwhelming. She’d watched Cait cry on her bed with a kind of unfazed detachment; something that, as soon as she woke up this morning, she’d felt a wave of guilt for. She hadn’t wanted to make Cait feel… Well, she hadn’t wanted Cait to be upset.

She supposes, deep down, she just desperately wanted Cait to take her home. The realisation that it wasn’t going to happen just… exhausted her, somehow. 

Anyway. She doesn’t want to think about yesterday. This morning, the hollowness in her chest has been replaced with a kind of grim determination. There doesn’t seem to be any immediate danger here, and clearly going home isn’t an option. So, she reluctantly decides on a new plan: do your time, and get the fuck out. 

She’s done it before, after all. Hopefully, a handful of weeks in a psych ward has nothing on years in Stillwater. 

There’s no heavy baton slamming against the bars of a cell to wake her up, at least. Instead, a bell gently rings at eight. She’s already been awake for hours, staring at that damn fist-shaped dent in her bedroom wall. After the bell, a woman’s voice says, Good morning, guests. Breakfast is now served until eight forty five. Welcome to another beautiful day. 

Vi makes a gagging sound. 

Still, her stomach rumbles. She can’t remember the last time she had a proper meal.

She changes quickly, swapping out her current tear-stained outfit for another pair of leggings and one of Cait’s soft jumpers. The smell of her girlfriend still clings to the fabric– spiced bergamot and cinnamon and… 

She blinks away tears and heads outside. 

There’s movement in the hallway; a handful of bleary-eyed patients heading out of their respective rooms, and a few more ahead of them, following the winding corridor around. A couple nod to her, expressions blank; she recognises them from the group therapy and feels her cheeks flush as she avoids their gazes. Everyone is generally quiet, still waking up, and Vi joins the flow of them all, feeling like nothing more than an ant, as they head to breakfast. 

She can barely remember the tour Grehan gave her, but she’s relieved to see that the space they take breakfast in isn’t a reflection of the grimy stone Stillwater cafeteria. Here, food is served through a hatch in the wall that peers through into a kitchen. Small, round tables and chairs are scattered throughout the wide space, and relief floods through Vi. At least she can choose her own table, away from the rest of these people, for now. 

Having to make conversation before her morning coffee felt a fate worse than death. 

She queues with the rest of them, head down, hands crossed over her chest. It hits her, suddenly, how empty her hands feel without something in them. She’s used to them always being full: with weapons, or bottles, or Cait’s fingers laced through hers. 

The emptiness is a hard lump in her throat. 

“Get the pancakes,” someone murmurs behind her. Vi doesn’t turn around to see who it is, though she thinks she recognises the voice as the girl from group therapy. Sara, was it? Laura? “They cook the eggs way too long and the raisin to chocolate ratio in the granola is way off. Trust me.”

Vi snorts. 

When she reaches the front of the queue, she takes the advice and gets pancakes and a large mug of coffee. She’s not usually one for eating breakfast, but the hunger niggles at her stomach, so she takes her tray and finds a table in the corner. 

She isn’t alone for long. 

Vi has managed to wolf down one of the small pancakes and is halfway through the strong, black coffee when a tray clatters down opposite her and the girl from group therapy – fresh-faced and with a cloud of orange hair frizzing like a halo over her head – takes a seat. “You went for the pancakes, then,” she notes, nodding to her own. She meets Vi’s wary expression with a grin. “Sola. From Group.”

“Right,” Vi says, slowly. “I remember.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” says the girl, tucking into her pancakes and chattering away like she could care less whether Vi responds or not. “I think my first Group was about the same. Actually, no, it was way worse than yours.” She shovels food into her mouth and chews, loudly, mouth open. “From what I heard–” She pauses to swallow, flashing Vi a mischievous grin. “You didn’t try to hop the fence. Which I totally did, about five minutes after meeting fucking Feather for the first time.”

Vi takes a long sip of her coffee. 

Who does she remind me of?

“That’s when I was on informal admission, though,” the girl continues, casually, “so, really I could have just signed myself out. I should have, whilst I had the fucking chance.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Sola’s eyes snap up to Vi’s, as though surprised to find her engaging with the conversation. “Hm?”

Vi watches the girl over the rim of her mug. “Why’d you stay?”

There’s a flash of something vulnerable in those brown eyes, just for a second, and then it’s masked with indifference. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go at the time. This place isn’t the Ritz but it’s got food and a bed and… y’know. Got too comfy, I guess.”

She flashes another rueful sigh, and Vi suddenly knows why Sola feels so familiar. 

Jinx. 

The giggling, the mood swings, the ability to chat shit with no sense of whether the person you’re talking to is actually listening. The manic glint in her eye, the girlish twist of her grin. 

Vi stands up, the movement abrupt, and leaves the breakfast on the table in front of her. 

Sola frowns. “Are you coming to writing group? It’s at nine.”

Vi can’t remember her timetable, but she nods anyway. “I just… I need to go get ready.”

“Whatever.” Sola shrugs her off, turning back to her pancakes. “See ya.”

Vi hurries from the room, bile rising in her throat, and tries not to think of her sister.

Chapter Text

Creative writing. Vi drums the chewed-up biro against the desk. Her memories of school are limited and blurry, but the single desks spaced a couple of feet apart, the whiteboard pinned to the wall at the front of the room, the notebook she is given full of blank, lined pages… It all feels hauntingly similar to a classroom. She feels like a kid again. 

When Sola takes the desk next to her, second row from the back, she has to force herself not to flinch. But luckily, the other girl is deep in conversation with another patient; a young man Vi doesn’t recognise. Vi averts her own gaze to the window, watching as Grehan walks slowly through the gardens, glancing in her direction. Smug bastard. 

She shoots him the finger. 

“Right,” says the therapist leading the session – thankfully, by some stroke of luck, not Feather. “Welcome to your writing therapy group. A couple of first timers, I see.” She nods to both Vi and the young man Sola was talking to, who shrinks back in his seat. “For the newcomers, we’ll have a quick refresher of the rules.”

Great, Vi thinks. Rules. 

“My name, by the way,” the therapist says, once again directing her gaze to Vi and the young man, “is Desdaria.”

Vi nods her acknowledgement, if only to make the woman turn her attention elsewhere. She’s a striking woman: dark-skinned with short, grey hair curling around her temples. Desdaria is a strange juxtaposition of sharp cheekbones, colourful clothing and the hunched posture of a woman much older than she seems. Vi pulls her gaze away from Desdaria and picks at the corner of the notebook on her desk instead.

“We’ll start off with the most basic rule,” says Desdaria. “Your notebook is your own. It is entirely private. If you find anyone else’s notebook, you are not to read it, but to hand it in to me or another member of staff immediately. You will never be asked to read anything out that you write in this class.”

Hm . That’s… surprising. But Vi feels her shoulders relax a little. 

“Sometimes,” Desdaria says, “I might ask if anyone wants to share what they’ve written after we’ve completed an exercise together. That is, I must stress, entirely optional. Sometimes it can be particularly therapeutic to share your work aloud. But the point of this class is not to produce writing that is good. It is to produce something that feels good.”

It’s the quietest it’s felt since she arrived. Vi lets her eyes drift up from her desk and scan briefly across the room. Unlike in the group therapy, Sola actually seems relaxed, doodling absently in the back of her own notebook. Others are paying close attention to Desdaria; some have already begun to scribble away in their own notebooks even though they haven’t been given any instruction yet. 

Huh. 

Desdaria smiles. “Another rule, leading on from that, is that if anyone does choose to share, we do not offer feedback on their writing. Like I said, this isn’t about producing award-winning fiction. This is about using our words to process whatever it is we need to.”

A few nods. 

“What might we say rather than offering critique or criticism on someone’s writing?” Desdaria asks the room. 

Vi expects an awkward lull of silence, but someone at the front of the room says, “We could say, thank you for sharing that.”

“Yes, Marcuis, thank you. We could absolutely express our appreciation to the person that has shared.” Desdaria flashes the person that spoke a bright smile. “We might also tell them things that we liked about the piece, moments that were moving – positive comments are fine. But we don’t need to tell them how to make the writing better, and we don’t need to relate their work back to our own experiences. That’s rarely helpful.”

Desdaria crosses the room to a record player that Vi hadn’t noticed before now. “Generally,” she says, flicking through a box of records until she finds one and places it on the turntable. “I play music whilst we write, to avoid silence because, frankly, I can’t stand the quiet.”

There are a few chuckles at that comment. Even Vi finds herself smiling, then quickly leaning her chin in her hand to smother it. The music – an old jazz track that feels hauntingly familiar – crackles into life. 

“If we’re all happy to jump straight into it,” Desdaria says, having crossed the room back to her own desk at the front of the class. “We’ll begin with a personal favourite. I don’t think many of you have done this one before, but if you have, feel free to adapt it.” Desdaria swipes a strand of silvery hair back behind her ear, fixes her startling eyes on Vi and says, “Let’s write a letter to your younger self.”

Vi swallows. 

Desdaria sweeps her gaze over the rest of the room. “Pick a pivotal age for you. A difficult age. It will be different for everyone, but see if you can choose an age between, maybe, five and seventeen. I want you to begin the letter with these three words. Dear little me. Or replace ‘me’ with your name. Dear little Desdaria, for example. Everybody clear?” There’s a sea of nods. Some people have already begun writing. “Excellent. Does anybody need a spare pen…?”

Everybody settles into quiet. The jazz music drifts lazily along in the background. Vi stares down at the blank notebook. Pen in hand, she scrawls her name onto the front cover, looping the letters together like the tattoo under her eye. 

She folds open the cover, smooths the paper flat with her hand, and puts pen to paper. It’s hard to remember a kid version of herself, but if she has to think back to a pivotal point in her childhood, there are a few that spring to mind.

Dear little Vi, she writes.

A lump forms in her throat.

Little Vi.

How long did she actually get to be a kid, in the grand scheme of things?

She blinks furiously, willing the tears to go away. This is stupid. This is easy. This is just a letter. 

How hard can it be? 

Chapter Text

Okay, so this might be a little harder than Vi expected it to be. She stares down at the page before her, so far marred only with inky black scribbles. Dear little Vi, she’d written, before striking it through when the words forced tears to spring to her eyes. Dear Vi, she’d tried again, before scrawling jagged black lines through them. Little me, she’d tried writing, but that was even worse somehow, and now she is just straight up scribbling, filling the page with ink so that she doesn’t have to be taunted by a blank white page at least.

This shouldn’t be so hard.

Except that it is. And as much as she knows that it’s stupid, that it’s just a fucking letter , she can’t help but picture these little tiny past versions of herself creeping in, taking their rightful places back in her life. She’s pushed them back for so long; tried to forget with everything inside of her. 

Childhood was so long ago, she’d said to Cait once, when her girlfriend had tried to prompt a conversation about it. I can barely remember. 

The truth is, she can remember all of it. She pretends she doesn’t; swallows back memories with every swig of whisky from the bottle, knocks the glimmers of faces from her past out of her head with every swing she takes at some drunken bar-dweller. She can wish all she likes, but she knows those little past versions of herself are more than some fucking origin story.

If she lets herself dwell too much on one of those little Vi’s, she can feel… everything. 

Dear little Vi, she tries writing again, halfway down the page now beneath all of her scribbles. 

She forces herself to look at those words, even as tears begin to blur the edges of her vision. 

She thinks about the little Vi, seven years old, scooping up baby Powder in her arms; stumbling under the weight of this chunky toddler, smelling of honey and milk. “I’m your big sister,” she said, with a certainty that only seven year old’s have. “I’ll look after you.”

Nine now, all toothy grins and pranks and a fascination with blowing bubbles through straws. Snorting with laughter at Vander’s impression of her mother. Being lifted up onto a counter as someone swiped blood from her knee and said, “Looky there, baby. Your first battle scar.”

But then the memories darken. A black cloud, thick as fog, tainting everything. A bridge, a scream, a bloodied hand. Powder’s arms around her waist, her wet tears sinking into little Vi’s shirt.

Vi blinks, furiously, feeling wetness on her chin and swiping at it with the sleeve of Cait’s jumper. The memories are a flood, coming almost too fast now for her to pick each one apart and give it any kind of attention. If she squeezes her eyes shut, she can see every single version of herself; the toddlers crawling across the floor of the therapy room, six and seven year old Vi’s swinging their legs from Desdaria’s desk, twelve year old Vi standing right in front of her, eyes haunted. 

Fuck .

She scribbles something down but she can barely read the words through her tears, now. 

Dear little Vi,

You deserved better.

A sound like a strangled sob escapes her lips. When she looks up, Desdaria is standing exactly where she’d pictured her twelve-year-old self, looking down at her with concern etched into her forehead. “Violet? Is everything alright?”

“I need a minute,” she croaks, scooping the notebook into her arms as she pushes back from the desk, the chair clanging to the ground behind her. “Sorry, I’ll – I’ll come back in. I just need a sec.”

I will come back in, she thinks, though she’s unsure who she’s trying to convince. Herself? Cait?

“Would you like company?” Desdaria is saying, even as Vi is almost at the door, notebook still clutched close to her chest.

“No,” she chokes out, forcing a smile. “I’m fine.”

She pushes through the doors, then stumbles down the corridor until she reaches the doors to the garden. The cold air hits her like an electric shock. She welcomes the feeling. Physical feelings, even the stinging pain of cold air flooding into her lungs, are better than emotional ones. That’s something she’s always lived by. She wonders, briefly, if that will ever change.

What was she supposed to write? There’s no age that isn’t painful to think about.

If she chooses a version of herself before the death of her parents, she’ll only be thinking about what’s to come. Dear little Vi, it would read. I know you’re only three, but don’t take any of this for granted. You’ve only got a handful of years to enjoy being tucked in at night. One day all of this will just be…

She shakes her head, huffing in a deep breath of icy air. 

If she chooses herself as a teenager, that’s just as painful. Dear little Vi, any day now you’re going to lose everything. 

Another sob rises up through her throat. 

She needs to see Cait. 

Cait’s the only one that knows how to calm her down when she feels like this. Vi knows it’s a lot to put on a person. God knows she hates herself for everything she puts on Cait every day. But there’s still this desperate, aching longing for the comfort that only Cait can bring, and she can’t push it away, no matter how hard she tries. They’re all each other have, after all. 

What would Cait say, if she were here?

Breathe, baby, Vi imagines Cait whispering, her lips close to Vi’s cheek as she cradles her hands in her own. It’s just a feeling. It’ll pass. 

“It’s just a feeling,” Vi whispers now, squeezing her hands into fists as she forces herself to breathe. “It’ll pass.

It’ll pass.”

Chapter Text

Cait can’t remember the last time she didn’t feel like crying. 

If she’s honest with herself, she’s cried every day since Vi went into hospital. If she’s really honest, it’s been even longer. There are dark smudges under her eyes and her skin feels dry and tired. Everything about her feels tired. 

Adjusting to life without Vi feels like adjusting to life after she lost her eye. It’s as if she’s missing a limb, or an organ: something vital. A lifeline. She sleeps alone in a bed that feels too big, in a room that feels too quiet. Suddenly, she misses stupid things like Vi’s snoring, or finding laundry on the floor of the bathroom. She misses the house feeling lived in.

Maybe the hospital wasn’t the right thing for Vi. It’s the first time she’s let herself properly entertain the video, but it twinges at something inside of her. Maybe this is all wrong. Maybe she’s supposed to be here, with me. 

Or maybe that was just her own selfishness. Maybe she’s somehow the reason Vi hasn’t gotten help ‘til now. Maybe I ignored her drinking and fighting because I just wanted her to stay here with me.

But that wasn’t true, was it? Things had been hard for a while. There had been days where Caitlyn had taken the couch instead of coming to bed; had been days when even talking to Vi about therapy, let alone having her go , induced a rage in her partner so strong that she didn’t want to be in the same house , let alone the same room as her. The love had always been there, but the light between them had dimmed. 

She paces the house, now. She hovers by the phone and wonders whether this is too selfish. 

She makes the call anyway.

The phone rings for a long time. Long enough that a little of Cait’s confidence fades. Am I just being needy? Is this going to disrupt Vi’s progress? She bites her lip. They’re probably sick of me calling; probably tired of me attempting to check in every–

“Hello, Rosewater Rehabilitation.” A man’s voice; chirpy and bright. “How can I help?”

Cait bit her lip. “Hello. I’d like to speak to a…” Patient? Resident? Prisoner? “I’d like to speak to Violet Lanes.”

“Just a moment, please.” There was some typing. Some muffled conversation. Cait pressed the phone tightly to her ear to try and catch something – anything. Eventually the man came back on the line. “Miss Lanes is in with Doctor Grehan at the moment.”

“Oh.” 

As if he can hear her heart sinking, the man says, “Maybe you’d like to schedule a phone call? Or a visit?”

Tears are burning at her eyes. “Can I come and see her?”

The man’s voice is soft. “Of course, Miss Kiramman. Of course.”

***

Caitlyn walks across town to the facility. Rain has begun to fall in fat, heavy droplets, and she isn’t wearing a jacket. It streams down her bare arms and sticks her hair wetly to her forehead. She could have taken a car—should have, really—but she couldn’t stand just sitting there and waiting to arrive. She’d rather be walking. At least, this way, she can focus on the movement, the feeling of the rain on her skin. At least this way, she feels like she’s doing something.

She’s drenched by the time she arrives at Rosewater. The man at the front desk—Cait assumes it’s the same man she spoke to on the phone, by the soft expression he fixes her with—offers her a towel whilst she waits. She should use it, but instead it sits, untouched, on her knee whilst she waits. She feels nervous, and a little shivery.

She just wants to see Vi.

But then, after what feels like an awfully long time waiting, the doors swing open and she’s standing there, in one of Cait’s oversized jumpers, looking at her.

And fuck , suddenly Cait doesn’t know what she wanted to get out of this visit. She wanted to see Vi, of course, she needed to see her—but now, actually having her standing in front of her with eyes raw from crying and her face gaunt from the withdrawal and the way Cait’s jumper seems to swamp her, it’s all just—it’s too much. She doesn’t feel better for seeing Vi. She feels worse.

“Cait?”

Cait’s eyes shouldn’t fill with tears like they do. She shouldn’t be the one crying, the one making Vi comfort her instead of the other way around. She takes a deep breath, standing up and setting the towel down on the chair behind her, and prepares herself to push the emotions back down. Vi is here, she’s alive, she’s okay , and now that she’s seen it with her own two eyes she can force her heartbeat back into it’s steady rhythm.

Then she looks up, and sees the way that Vi’s brow is furrowed in concern, and it reminds her so much of how they used to be that she bursts into tears. 

“Alright.” Vi crosses the space between them and closes her arms around her. “Hey, it’s alright. I’m here.”

She’s here .

Cait vaguely notices Doctor Grehan standing in the still-open doorway, but she can’t bring herself to be polite and acknowledge his presence. She buries her face in Vi’s shoulder and sobs instead.

It’s entirely undignified. She might have cried every day for the last— God knows however long—but she doesn’t let other people see her cry. To the world, Commander Kiramman is supposed to be strong and unshakeable. A decorated officer. Leader of House Kiramman, but now…

She doesn’t have too long to spiral about her lack of dignity because Vi is stroking her hair and saying, “Why are you so wet?” and she realises that she is actually soaking and in hugging Vi, she’s gotten her all wet as well. 

“Come to my room?” Vi suggests, pulling back to loop their hands together. “You can change into something dry.”

They’re halfway down the corridor before Cait realises she hasn’t even said hello. 

Chapter Text

Caitlyn lifts her arms like a child and lets Vi tug the wet clothes from her body, replacing them with warm, dry ones from her own closet. She watches as Vi hangs the discarded clothes on the back of the chair, sets it by the heater to dry them off. Cait’s hair, still sodden, seeps rainwater into the shoulders of her new, dry sweatshirt.

“Cait,” Vi says, flatly. “You’re shivering.”

Am I? She hadn’t really noticed. Since she stopped crying—which, admittedly had only been a few minutes ago—she’s been hit by a wave of exhaustion. Letting your emotions out really is tiring, it turns out.

Vi kneels down in front of where Cait is sitting on the bed, her forearms resting on Cait’s knees as she takes her cold hands. “Cait, I need you to say something.”

“Sorry,” she whispers.

Vi runs her thumbs over Cait’s knuckles. “You don’t need to be sorry, cupcake. I just—will you tell me what’s wrong?” When Cait doesn’t say anything, Vi’s grip on her hands tightens a little. Her voice shakes. “I wasn’t expecting you—not that I’m not glad you’re here, I am —but you don’t look good, Cait, and I’m worried something’s happened and I really, really need you to talk to me. Okay?”

Vi’s a little breathless, now. Her eyes are wide. Cait feels her own heart clench at the sight of her concern. She clears her throat. Vi is watching her with such care and concentration that she wants to burst into tears again—but instead she swallows, thickly, and says, “I just missed you, that’s all.”

Vi’s expression softens. “That’s all? Promise?”

“Promise.”

Caitlyn sniffs, shuffling further on to the bed and laying back on the pillows. She digs her hands into the sleeves of the jumper to try and fight the shivers she knows are coming. God, she’s exhausted.

Vi frowns, still kneeling on the carpeted floor. “I think you’re coming down with something.”

“It was just all the crying,” Cait assures her, her voice rough. She swallows. “Lay with me?”

Vi sighs. Before she climbs into bed beside her, she shuffles the blanket from under Caitlyn’s legs and lays it on top of her. Then, she slips in, their faces inches apart, her hand on Cait’s waist. They’ve laid like this so many times before. So many times, before things became too hard. It makes Cait want to cry all over again.

Cait runs her fingers up and down Vi’s arm. She’s here. She’s here. She’s here.

She doesn’t know how she can go back to that lonely house again tonight. She doesn’t know how much longer she’ll be able to live without Vi’s constant presence. Suddenly, she doesn’t care how hard it is. She just wants everything to go back to the way it was. 

“Are you having a good day?” Cait whispers.

Vi snorts a laugh. “Are you joking?”

Cait smiles. “No.”

Vi chews the inside of her cheek, her own smile fading. “Uh—no. I wasn’t having a good day. ‘Til you showed up.”

Cait’s too tired to take the compliment. “What happened?”

Vi shrugs, the movement rustling the sheets beneath them. When she speaks, her voice is a whisper, too. They’re so close, Cait can feel the brush of Vi’s breath on her cheeks. “We had to write a letter. To, like, our younger selves, or something.”

Cait doesn’t miss the way Vi tries to force nonchalance. She can see the way Vi’s eyes are glassing over, the catch in her voice. She stops running her fingers down Vi’s arm and catches her girlfriend’s hand in hers, instead. Their fingers lock together. Vi makes a small, contented sound, and her eyelids flutter closed. 

“That sounds really hard,” Cait whispers.

She doesn’t want to say much else; doesn’t want to prompt Vi into feeling a certain way. She just leaves the sentence hanging between them and waits for Vi to react.

Eventually, her girlfriend nods. “Yeah.” She opens her eyes, fixes them on Cait. “We were supposed to pick a time that was, I don’t know, hard for us when we were kids. I think that was the point of it. I don’t know.”

“The point was probably to help you find compassion for yourself,” Caitlyn prompts, and Vi nods again.

“Yeah, I guess. But I couldn’t think, you know? Of a time that wasn’t hard. I couldn’t think of anything to say to any version of myself that wasn’t buckle up , it’s about to get worse. ” Vi chews on her lip, now, squeezing her eyes shut again. Cait wants to reach out and stroke her cheek, but their fingers are still intertwined and she can’t bring herself to let go. “I’m so glad I met you, Cait, but sometimes I wonder if you’re really the only good thing that’s happened to me.”

“That’s not true,” Cait murmurs, but her heart twinges.

“Everything else that was good has gone away eventually. Everyone I loved, every—” She opens her eyes again and, this time, Cait can see the tears glistening, ready to fall. “Every good memory is tainted with the loss that came after, do you know what I mean?”

Cait thinks of her mother. “Yes.”

Vi shakes her head like she hasn’t heard her. “I’ve nothing to say to my younger self, Cait. Nothing that isn’t…”

Cait knows Vi well enough to know the thoughts that are spiralling in her head. She knows that the only thing she’d say to her younger self would be something along the lines of: save yourself the time. It’s not worth the energy.

Everyone you love will leave you, anyway.

Vi never finishes the sentence. She can see, in Cait’s eyes, that she’s already heard the end.

Cait sniffles again. There’s a headache beginning to creep in behind her eyes. She says, “I love every single version of you.”

Vi huffs a short laugh. “Even the ones you’ve never met?”

“Especially the ones I’ve never met,” Cait promises. “There wouldn’t be a you if there hadn’t been a them .”

She nestles closer to Vi, tucks her head beneath her chin and curls up in her arms. Vi’s hands move to hold her; one smoothing the still-damp hair from her forehead, the other snaked around her back, pulling her close. Vi tenses a little as her fingers brush the skin of Cait’s forehead. “You feel warm, Cait.”

Cait nestles closer. “No, I’m cold.”

“No,” Vi says, slowly. “You’re really warm.” She pulls back a little, trying to get a glimpse of Cait’s face. Her cheeks are flushed. “Were you feeling sick before you came to see me?”

“No, I…”

Was I? She’d been restless and anxious for days. There’d been a lot of crying, not a lot of sleeping, she can’t remember the last time she had a proper meal, but… She guesses, now, that she has been feeling kind of off, but she’d put all of that down to a poor sleep schedule and lack of sunlight. “I don’t think so,” she lied.

She doesn’t look up from where she was buried, with her cheek pressed against the soft skin of Vi’s neck, but she could feel her girlfriend tense. “Cait.”

Cait sighs. “I don’t know.”

Vi hums. “I do.” She shifts in the bed. “Give me a second, I need to go and do something.”

“No.” Cait tightens her grip on Vi’s jumper. “Stay. Please.”

Cait feels Vi’s shoulders slump. “Five minutes, Cait.”

They stay like that until Cait falls asleep; enveloped in Vi’s arms, wondering how it could be possible to love a person this much.

Chapter Text

Vi untangles herself from Caitlyn’s sleeping form. Cait really does feel warm, now; warmer, still, for curling up against Vi. Vi presses a gentle hand to Cait’s forehead, and can’t tell where her hair is still damp from the rain or where a thin sheen of sweat has begun to coat her skin. She closes the door behind her as quietly as she can, hoping Cait doesn’t wake up, and then turns around to find herself face-to-face with Sola.

The girl stands on her tiptoes, her usual cloud of frizzy hair twisted back into two round buns on top of her head. Her eyes are sparkling with mischief that Vi doesn’t have the energy for. 

“Is there a girl in your room?” Sola says, eyes glinting. “I didn’t realise we were allowed girls in our rooms.”

Vi rolls her eyes. “Leave her. She’s sick.”

She sets off down the corridor, Sola hot on her heels. 

“Is that your girlfriend?”

Vi pushes through the first set of double doors with a sigh. “Yeah.”

“She’s pretty.”

“I know.”

“Where are you going?”

Vi pauses at the place where the corridor splits off, and nods her head in the direction of Doctor Grehan’s office. “I’ve gotta go see Grehan about something.” She pauses at the girl’s hopeful expression. “I’ll… see you later, alright?”

“Alright,” says Sola, chirpily. “See you later.”

Vi shakes her head as she watches the girl disappear back down the corridor. She really does remind her of Jinx. She’d known that when she first encountered Sola, but she’d pushed the thought away because it made her feel sick. Sola was unpredictable and seemed to swing from one intense mood to the next. But she was sweet enough.  It made Vi think of Jinx in a place like this. Whether she could have gotten help before—

She shakes the thought from her head and makes her way to Grehan’s office.  

He doesn’t even look up from his laptop as Vi appears in the doorway.

“Violet,” he says. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

She frowns. “How’d you know it was me?”

He peers over the screen and says, straight-faced, “You are heavy-footed.”

She scowls at his grin. He gestures for her to take a seat, but she doesn’t. She does move a little closer into the room, closing the door behind her, and hovers by one of the bookshelves. “I, uh—I need to be with Cait tonight.”

Grehan finishes typing something, taking his time, and then closes the laptop with a soft click . He gestures again for her to take a seat. She shakes her head. His expression doesn’t change—but he also doesn’t say anything.

Vi spurs on. “She’s not been doing too hot, and I think she might be getting the flu or something and she’s such a baby when she’s sick.” She huffs a breath. “I can’t just send her back out on her own, and there’s nobody else to take care of her. I’ll just—” She bites her lip. She’s begun to pace, a little, not meeting Grehan’s eyes. She wonders how truthful she’s being, with her Caitlyn needs me narrative. “I’ll—I’ll be worried about her, and then I won’t be focusing on—” She gestures around her. “All this.”

“All this,” the Doctor repeats, skeptical.

She shoots him a look. “Yeah, you know. The program.”

This time, when he gestures for her to take a seat, she does. She slumps down like a kid being called into the Headteacher’s office. She picks at the leather of the armchair, avoiding his eyes. 

Grehan moves his laptop aside and leans his forearms on the desk in front of him, fixing Vi with a stern gaze. “So, you’ve come to—what? Ask me if you can go home for the night?” Vi’s eyes flick up to his, and his expression softens. “Vi, we’ve been through this. You are permitted to leave at any point, unless we feel you are a danger—”

“—To myself or others, I know.” She doesn’t know why it comes out so bitter. “I know.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

She chews her lip. Why is this so difficult?

Another voice in her head; a gentler one that is beginning to sound a lot like Caitlyn: Because you’re asking for help. 

Vi swallows. “If I go home, I won’t come back.”

Grehan meets her eyes. “Violet—”

“I mean it, I’m not fucking around.” Vi sinks lower into the armchair. “I’ve been thinking about drinking every day since I sobered up. It hasn’t gone away, that…” Need . “It’s not just that, it’s… I love Cait, I do, and I promised her I’d really try this time, and if I go home…” She trails off again, eyes burning now. “I won’t come back, alright? I just won’t.”

There’s a long, aching silence between them.

Finally, Grehan speaks. “Can you walk me through the reason why you don’t think you’ll come back, Violet?”

She glares. “I didn’t come here for a therapy session. Haven’t you seen enough of me today?” 

He doesn’t laugh. “It sounds like you need something from me, and I’m not inclined to give it to you until we work through some of this.” He tilts his head, his voice even. “Which sounds fair, don’t you think?”

Vi crosses her arms over her chest and glares a little harder.

Grehan doesn’t let up. “Why won’t you come back?”

She shrugs, feigning a nonchalance she doesn't feel. “I’ll go on a drinking spree.”

His gaze is unwavering. 

“I’ll go to a bar and start a fight and let some big dude beat me half to death,” she offers up. “Alright? That’s what I’ll do. I’ll do everything wrong because that’s who I am. Those are my default settings.” The tears might be spilling, now. She swipes furiously at her cheek with the back of her hand. “It might not happen straight away, but it’ll happen. And it won’t matter that Cait is there, because the only thing stronger than my love for her is how much I hate myself. Alright? We done?”

She stands up, suddenly, and the chair makes an odd, strangled sound as it scrapes against the floorboards. 

Doctor Grehan is watching her. “No, Violet,” he says, softly. “We aren’t done.”

Chapter Text

Outside the window, the skies are dark. It’s still raining, black clouds thickly gathered in the skies above the hospital. Vi isn’t sure what time of day it is, only that she’s missed her timetabled activities for the afternoon. She’d spoken with Doctor Grehan earlier, for what felt like hours, after she left the morning creative writing class. She can’t even remember what they were talking about for so long. There was a lot of pinpointing feelings , she remembers that. Grehan was a big fan of vocalising which feelings were coming to the front; where she could acknowledge them in her body—stupid therapy shit. Vi doesn’t get it.

But she knows she’s sick of the inside of Grehan’s office, by now. And she knows she’d much rather be curled up next to Cait. 

It takes a minute of Grehan’s careful, steady gaze for Violet to slump back into the armchair. Her body feels heavy. Her heart feels heavy. She says, finally, “I think I’m done with talking for today. Please.”

His eyes narrow.

She knows she’s in no position to be difficult. Their one agreement was that she tried to make it through the timetable of activities and therapies and groups that he’d given her. So far, she’s walked out of two, shown up for only a handful of meals, and had more breakdowns than she’s willing to count right now. Her track record for trying here is bad. Grehan has every right to not listen to a word she says.

She knows he’s not that kind of a doctor, though.

He sighs, but the sound isn’t resigned. It’s thoughtful. “I’m worried about you.”

She scoffs. “I’m in a psych ward.”

“You’re in a hospital ,” he corrects her. He stands up, retrieves a pitcher of water from the cabinet behind him, and pours two glasses. “We need to think of an approach here that is going to benefit your recovery. You haven’t been with us long, I know, and I didn’t expect a huge amount of progress right away.”

She takes the glass he offers her. “That’s encouraging.”

He shrugs, sitting back down. “Recovery isn’t linear. With you, we had the process of your withdrawal to bear in mind as well. It would have been foolish for me to expect you to jump headfirst into a healing journey when you’re still battling with addiction.”

“I’m not—” She cuts herself off at his sharp look, deflating. “Please, I don’t want to talk about—”

“That’s precisely the problem, Violet.” Doctor Grehan’s voice is a little harder, now. “You don’t want to talk about what’s going on with you, and that makes it all the more dangerous.” He softens his tone. “The things you think about yourself—the narrative you’re following in your head—what if that wasn’t true? How might you know that, unless you share with others?”

Vi shrinks back into the armchair, cradling the glass of water in both hands. She doesn’t know what to say to get Grehan off her back. She doesn’t want to let his words sink in—she just wants to get back to Cait, and focus on that, and take a fucking break from the weight of her own problems for once.

Grehan doesn’t seem like he’s going to let that happen.

“Please.” Her voice breaks. “Cait’s sleeping, and I don’t want her to wake up alone.”

There’s a moment where she thinks Grehan is going to argue with her; going to force her to stay here with him and work through her stupid fucking problems before she’s allowed to take care of her girlfriend … But then he nods, slowly, his eyes still steadied on hers, and she feels her shoulders sag with relief.

“Caitlyn can stay with us until she’s feeling better,” he states, finally.

Vi feels tears prick at her eyes. “Really?”

“It’s irregular—but she’s sick, and this is a hospital.” He sighs, pressing a finger to his temple. “I think it would be more beneficial for your recovery if you are together, for a couple of days at least, and if you feel unable to go home then this is the next logical option.”

Vi nods, straightening a little in her chair. She takes a sip of her water. She feels heard , for the first time in a very long time.

Doctor Grehan turns to his laptop for a moment. She waits patiently whilst he types something, sighs, then closes the screen again. “I’ve cleared some space in my schedule for today, and the next few days. It doesn’t seem like you’re ready for the groups, yet. You keep…” He purses his lips. “...Leaving them.”

She shoots him an unsteady grin. 

Grehan seems to be resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “We’ll be doing one-on-one therapy as regularly as I see fit until I think you’re ready to be reintroduced to the groups. It is one of my conditions for allowing Caitlyn to stay with us, and for allowing you to break away from the timetable.” His gaze is firm. “I am making exceptions for you, Violet. I hope you’ll honour that.”

She nods, her throat tight. “What are the other conditions?”

“Caitlyn will be moved to the medical wing.”

The thought of that place, with it’s beeping machines and clinical smell, where she’d emptied the contents of her stomach onto the floor more times than she could count when drying out—it makes her stomach flip all over again. “She can’t just stay in my room?”

Grehan sighs. “Violet, if she’s sick —”

“Yeah, no, you’re right.” She can push back that feeling if it means Cait gets proper medical attention. “Can I… Can I take her in? I don’t want someone else—I mean, she doesn’t know anybody here.”

“Yes.” He sounds resigned. “I’ll let them know to prepare two beds.”

She falters. “Two?”

He shoots her a knowing look, then turns to open his laptop. “Yes. Two.”

Vi smiles a little at that. It means a lot that he’ll allow them to stay together. She knows the enormity of the exception he’s making for her. She makes a promise to herself not to take it for granted. “Are there… any other conditions?”

Any humour that had been sparkling in his eyes is gone. Doctor Grehan pauses, lips pursed slightly in thought, and then looks at Vi. “Just one more.”

She swallows. “Okay.”

“We will implement a Green, Amber, Red system.” Grehan’s voice is quiet, measured. “For your mental health, particularly feelings of hopelessness or suicidal ideation.” Vi flinches at the words. He notices. “Violet—being suicidal doesn’t always mean you have a plan to end your life imminently, do you understand? Any feelings of hopelessness or…” He pauses, thinks. “Not caring what happens to you, not feeling motivated to keep living… All of this—anything of this vein—I want to fall under Red feelings. Alright?”

Vi chews on her lip. “I don’t get it.”

“That’s fine, that’s…” Grehan pauses. His voice is gentle. “I’m going to ask you to check in with me, frequently, about your mental state. You may answer Green, Amber, or Red. Green doesn’t need to mean that you’re feeling on top of the world, but it will mean that you’re feeling okay about yourself, about the future.” He looks at her for confirmation of her understanding, and she feels herself nod, tentative. Go on . “Amber feelings might include feeling anxious or upset, perhaps low self esteem—feelings we can talk through, explore, and put measures in place to help you move past them.”

It sounds reasonable. Fuck, she hates that it sounds reasonable.

“Red feelings sound an awful lot like what you described earlier. Feeling a hatred for yourself more intensely than love for your partner.” She flinches, again, but he doesn’t stop: “Feeling incredibly low, worthless, hopeless, or suicidal. Do you understand the system?”

“Yes.” Her voice comes out like a whisper. She clears her throat and tries again. “Yeah.”

Outside, it rains a little harder. The wind sweeps the raindrops to pummel against the window. She hopes it doesn’t wake Cait up. Grehan is watching her with an expression that could be concern or curiosity.

“Alright,” he says, gently. “Do you have any questions for me, Violet?”

She shakes her head, instinctively, and then stops herself. “I—wait. Say, if I am feeling, you know…” She swallows, her mouth suddenly dry. “Red. What happens?”

Now, his expression is definitely concern.

“Not what you think will happen,” Grehan says, firmly. “There will be no shutters slamming down and locks on the doors, Violet. If—and I mean if —I decide that you are a danger to yourself, and we need to change your admission to a more formal one, that kind of thing will be discussed with you. Alright? In great detail. It’s not a process I take lightly. I want you to come to me and discuss your feelings if you are feeling Red, so that we can work through that together, and I don’t want you to think that being truthful has consequences.” He sighs. “I know I have a trust to build up with you, here, Violet. I will work very hard to build it, do you understand?”

She nods, eyes burning. Pushes herself up from the armchair and says, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Doctor Grehan repeats, watching her. She’s already walking to the door. “And how are you feeling right now, Violet?”

Her hand is on the doorknob. Cait is waiting in her bedroom.

She forces a smile. 

“Amber,” she lies.

Chapter Text

Cait wakes up to strong arms scooping her up from the bed. She tenses only for a second before she breathes in the familiar smell of Vi and settles back against her chest. She tries to say her name, but the intake of breath is enough to tickle her throat back into a fit of coughing. Gods , this happened so quickly, didn’t it? It feels like she was only feeling a little off, just a little under the weather, and now suddenly she has no idea what day it is or how long she’s been asleep.

She tries to relay her confusion to Vi, whose grip tightens as she jostles Cait in her arms, squeezing them both through the narrow doorway.

“Shh,” Vi says, as they move into a brightly-lit hallway that makes Cait flinch back, the light burning her eyes. Vi hugs her closer. “Alright, cupcake. Try not to wiggle too much, I’m out of practice.” She feels Vi’s breathing get a little heavier. “I don’t know if you know this, but they don’t have a gym here.” They push through a set of doors. Cait nestles in to the vibration of Vi’s voice in her chest. “And I’m not allowed to beat anyone up. My arms are basically spaghetti.”

That makes Cait huff a little laugh. Her fingers tangle themselves in Vi’s jumper, trying to pull herself closer. She’s so cold, and Vi is always so warm. She makes a little sound of protest as suddenly the warmth seems to be pulled away; she’s being set down on something— a bed?— but she tightens her grip on Vi’s jumper and moans.

The sound quickly spurs on another fit of coughing. There’s another voice now, one much higher in tone than Vi’s, but Cait can’t quite make out what it’s saying. “She needs to—yes, he said you could—right there, would you mind—”

“Vi,” she moans, breaking off to cough again.

“Cupcake.” Vi’s voice is close. Her fingers are prying Cait’s away from her jumper, taking them in her hands instead. Vi’s hands are so warm. Caitlyn wants to cry. “Cait, I’m staying with you, alright? I’m right here.”

Caitlyn feels like she’s been hit by a large vehicle. Vi is the only comfort she can find, and as soon as the fingers slip from hers, she’s reaching for them again. Her eyes are closed but she’s still reaching, reaching—

***

Cait feels like she’s drifting. There are voices all around her: some she recognises, some she doesn’t. She thinks she hears Doctor Grehan talking in a low voice, and she knows she feels Vi’s steady presence beside her. A hand on her forehead, fingers intertwined with her own. There’s a rattling sound at one point that forces Cait to open her eyes and, when she does, she sees that another bed has been wheeled over, pushed next to hers as close as it will go with the small side-table between. 

Cait would smile if she had the energy. Vi. 

“How’s the pain, Caitlyn?” someone says, to her left: a woman’s voice, light and professional. If the voice doesn’t belong to Vi, Cait decides she can’t find the energy to respond. “Caitlyn—keep your eyes open—”

***

Things feel a little clearer the next time she opens her eyes. There’s something heavy on her face and, when she tries to turn her head, a cold, damp cloth slips onto the bare skin of her shoulder and makes her flinch.

She’s not wearing the sweatshirt Vi had changed her into earlier. Now, the dampness of the cloth is seeping slowly into a thin, white t-shirt that she knows doesn’t belong to either of them.

There’s a rustle of movement beside her, and someone reaches out to move the cloth back onto her forehead. Instinctively, she raises a hand to push them away.

“Hey, stop.” Vi presses the cloth back to Cait’s forehead and bats her hand away. “You have a fever, Cait. I know it feels gross. Keep it there a while longer.”

“Cold,” she manages to say.

Cait’s eyes finally manage to focus for long enough to see the unamused look Vi shoots her. “That’s kind of the point, cupcake.”

Cait’s eyelids feel heavy, but she doesn’t want to go back to sleep. She turns her head fully towards where Vi is, and sees that she’s sitting on her own bed beside Cait’s, arm stretched out to hold the wet cloth in place. Cait feels her eyes widen in concern. “Are you—” She breaks off coughing, feels Vi’s hand close over her arm in comfort, then composes herself: “Are you sick, too?”

Vi shakes her head. Her expression is… adoring? Cait can’t think of another way to describe it. Adoring. 

Good, she thinks, faintly. I adore her, too.

“I’m not sick,” Vi assures her. “I grew up in the Undercity, I’ve got the immune system of a… tank, or something.” Cait snorts a laugh, and Vi drops her hand from the cloth on her forehead and runs her fingers down Cait’s cheek instead. “You, however, do not.”

Cait feels tears prick at her eyes; sudden, stupid. 

“Hey, don’t cry.” Vi’s voice is suddenly impossibly soft. There’s a creak as she stands up from her own bed and moves to sit on the edge of Cait’s instead, careful not to jostle her too much. She takes Cait’s hand tightly in hers, uses the other to brush the soft skin under her eye. “What’s the matter?”

The crying makes Cait cough again, and the movement of it twinges something in her chest. Has she pulled a muscle from all the coughing? That makes her want to cry even more. This whole thing is so embarrassing. She tells Vi as much when she can finally speak again.

Vi startles. “Embarrassing? Why?”

She shrugs, pathetically. “I was supposed to be coming to see you , and now I’ve made this all about me.”

Her girlfriend’s eyes narrow. “Things are allowed to be about you, Cait. ‘Specially when you’re sick.” She cups Cait’s cheek with the palm of her hand and holds it there. “I’m really glad you came here. I… I don’t know what would have happened if you were like this at home. Without me.”

Cait tries for a smile. “I’d have survived.”

It doesn’t seem to make Vi feel any better. Now, Cait feels bad. She doesn’t want Vi thinking about her in that house, feverish and alone. Her hand finds Vi’s against her cheek and she squeezes, lightly. “Lay with me?”

Vi leans in and kisses her on the forehead. It makes even more tears spring to her eyes. 

“I can’t, cupcake. You’re too warm, but I’ll be—I’ll be right there, okay?” She gestures to the bed next to her, then, as if to prove her point, stands up and inches the bed even closer to Cait’s. “There we go. I’ll be right here, until you’re better.”

***

Vi doesn’t leave. Caitlyn lets her eyes drift closed eventually, shivering, feeling far too cold despite the sweat that sticks to her skin. She coughs herself awake more than once, and each time feels Vi’s soothing touch on her back, her shoulders, gently holding her and then settling her back into the bed. Outside, rain hammers against the windows, but the sound is comforting. She feels awful. She’s glad she’s here.

She wakes up when she hears Vi talking to Doctor Grehan. They’re keeping their voices low, but Cait strains to listen.

Something about colours?

“This will only work,” the Doctor is saying, in a hushed, gentle voice, “if you can be honest with me.”

“I am ,” Vi insists, but Cait knows her well enough to know that she’s lying. There’s that defiant lilt in her voice, the same defensiveness that comes out when she’s been caught sneaking hidden liquor. “I’ll tell you, I just…”

The conversation fades as Caitlyn stirs. She opens her eyes in time to see Doctor Grehan shoot Vi a warning look and disappear off down the corridor. Her girlfriend huffs, lies down in her own bed beside Cait’s. As Caitlyn shifts, rolling onto her side to face Vi, Vi does the same. Her eyes are a little glassy, her cheeks flushed.

“Are you okay?” Cait whispers, her arm outstretched toward Vi.

She notices the tears in Vi’s eyes. She’s pretty sure she sees one slip out and down her cheek, seeping into the fabric of the pillow. Vi reaches across the small space between them and loops her fingers into Cait’s. 

“Please don’t ask me that,” Vi whispers back. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

“What’s—” Cait stifles a cough. “What’s wrong—?”

“They’re not sure what it is yet,” Vi murmurs. Caitlyn wasn’t going to ask what was wrong with her , but she lets Vi continue anyway. “Could be a viral infection, or—” Cait notices how Vi swallows, thickly, her voice growing hoarse. “They said it could be an infection that usually you’d just fight off, but… You’re stressed. I bet you haven’t been sleeping.”

Cait doesn’t know how to counter that. 

“It’s my fault,” Vi whispers, finally, eyes brimming now. “You’ve been worried about me, and you haven’t been taking care of yourself, and now something stupid and small has made you so sick because your body isn’t able to—”

She cuts herself off with a choked sound.

Caitlyn just stares at her. “Is that what—” She coughs, again, and this time there’s a metallic taste in her mouth that makes her cringe. “Is that really what you think?”

Vi notices the way her expression tenses. “Cait, you’re not well. We can talk another time, just—”

Cait coughs again, and this time, there’s a faint splatter of pink on the white bedsheets. “Violet, if you think—”

Vi is calling for someone—a nurse, Cait thinks—and Cait’s suddenly furious that she can’t even manage to have this conversation without worrying everyone. She can’t have Vi thinking this is her fault, can’t have Vi put another thing on her shoulders, and she desperately wants to tell her that, but when she opens her mouth again, it’s just more coughing, more spatters of blood. 

“Cait.” Vi’s voice breaks. “Stop. Stop trying to talk. I mean it.”

“Not until you stop—” The coughs shake her entire body. The movement is sharp enough that Cait thinks she might just crack a rib. “Blaming—your…”

Someone presses a cool cloth to her head. An oxygen mask is lowered over her mouth.

Cait feels tears on her cheek before she even realises she’s crying.

Chapter Text

The nurses think it’s pneumonia. Vi knows lots of kids that died from that when she was younger, and the panic swells in her, but the nurses assure her she’ll be okay. They say Cait probably inhaled some bacteria in the air or something, that her weakened immune system didn’t quite know how to fight it, that things progressed quickly but she’s in the right place, now. Vi can barely pay attention to what they’re saying. She keeps looking over at where Cait is now hooked up to an IV, oxygen mask firmly pressed over her sleeping face. She’s so pale. The nurses usher Vi back so that they can change the blood-spattered sheets.

Vi squeezes her hands together, unsure of where to go. This feels like a nightmare.

Grehan appears by her side. Either this room is too loud or he’s started sneaking around. His presence startles her, and he watches carefully as she composes herself. “Violet, can we talk?”

It’s the last thing she wants right now. She knows she’s no use here, standing awkwardly and watching the nurses fuss around Cait, watching her girlfriend lying there still and lifeless and imagining her dead, because of course that’s where her mind jumps to. She can’t help it. She’s lost too many people to be able to see Cait like this and not imagine how deep the absence of her would feel.

Vi wouldn’t survive the loss of Caitlyn. She knows this with a dreadful kind of certainty.

“Violet?” presses Doctor Grehan. “Can we step outside for a moment?”

“I promised Cait I’d stay with her,” she murmurs. 

I can’t break another promise.

“She’s resting right now.” Grehan steps a little closer, his hand hovering by Vi’s elbow, but not quite touching. He’s ready to guide her, she thinks, if she refuses to leave Cait’s side. “I promise the nurses will fetch us if she wakes up, alright? But I think she’ll be resting with some time, after the medicine.” He pauses, then adds, a little softer: “We won’t go far. We’ll be right outside this window, see?”

He nods to the wide window by Cait’s bedside. Outside, there’s a little shelter in the courtyard with two or three benches inside. It’d be a short run through the rain across the grass to get there. She’d have a decent enough view of Cait’s bed.

“Alright,” she agrees, and her throat feels sore. “Fine.”

He makes her take a coat before they step outside. She slips on the jacket reluctantly and then, when he makes no move to wear one of his own, wonders whether he’s given her his. There’s an unexpected pang of annoyance at the chivalry, and she’s about to slip the damn thing off again to make a point, but then Grehan opens the door and the cold, wet air hits her, and she decides to let this one go. Just this once.

It’s a quick walk across the stretch of grass to the shelter, and Vi has the hood tucked up over her head, but Grehan’s hair is still wet when they sit down together. She chooses the bench opposite Grehan’s; because sitting together feels too intimate and this one has a better view of Cait’s bed—or, at least, the back of the nurses heads as they lean over her, fussing with a machine. She watches as Grehan sweeps a hand through his hair, shaking the rain from it. Huh . Funny how something as small as having wet hair can make a guy look so much younger. He looks less like a doctor, now. Like he probably isn’t that much older than her.

“The nurses say you haven’t eaten today,” Grehan says, a casual opening to the conversation. Vi wants to argue that Cait hasn’t eaten anything either, but nobody’s bothering her about it. “They also say that you haven’t slept.”

“I can’t sleep,” she mumbles, shifting her position to make sure Cait’s bed is still in view. “I’m not tired.”

That isn’t entirely true. Vi’s quite sure that Grehan knows that, too, but he doesn’t push it. He’s brought his notebook with him, but it lies unopened in his lap. She’s glad. Her moods feel unpredictable at the moment. She doesn’t know how quickly her temper will flare if he decides to start psychoanalysing her. 

“Tell me how you’re feeling.”

She swallows back a lump in her throat. “Scared. For Cait.”

Grehan tilts his head slightly. “It can be frightening, seeing a loved one so unwell. But the nurses say she’ll make a full recovery. They’re feeling very optimistic about her condition.”

“I know.”

He hums. “So, what else are you feeling?”

Vi chews the inside of her cheek. Surely, this is all a trick. She’s vulnerable right now, he’s going to get her to say she’s feeling fucking Red and then before she knows it, she’ll be separated from Cait and trapped here and it’ll feel like Stillwater again—like fucking prison —and the thought of being back in that place is enough to send a wave of nausea so sudden that she has to lean forwards, head between her knees, to stop herself from throwing up.

“Violet,” says Doctor Grehan, gently. “Use your words. Tell me how you’re really feeling.”

She knows it’s a trick, she does , but she can’t tell whether she’s about to cry or vomit and she’s feeling floaty in the worst way possible and eventually she just gives in and says, “Cait would be so much better off without me.”

There, she thinks, miserably. I’ve said it.

Then she turns away from Grehan and vomits onto the grass. 

***

He gives her a minute to compose herself, but now the anxiety is sending ripples of nausea through her entire body, and fuck it’s hard not to throw up again every time it hits her. Grehan tells her there’s a packet of tissues in the pocket of the coat. She hastily fishes one out and swipes at her mouth. 

This feeling in her body is so visceral—it’s like she’s been on a three day bender, all shaky and anxious and sick, with a fuzzy feeling creeping in around her eyes. She knows it’s anxiety: Cait’s told her this before. It’s not the first time her body’s had this kind of a reaction.

Doesn’t mean it gets any easier.

“Focus on the feelings , Violet.”

“Fuck off,” she groans. She’d thought maybe hurling her guts up would have given her a free pass from this particular shrink session. “I can’t—”

“You can,” he insists, his voice firm. “You can feel the uncomfortable feelings and hold space for them.”

“I don’t want to.” She hates, with a burning passion, the way that her voice sounds so much like a child’s. She feels like she’s being petulant, immature. “Just… give me a minute.”

“Why is Caitlyn better off without you, Violet?” he pushes. 

If you’re trying to get me to snap, she thinks, bitterly. You’re going the right way about it.

He knows that, though. She’s sure he does. 

Her head is still hanging uselessly between her knees. She spits on the ground once for good measure and then raises her gaze to meet his. “I’m not fucking talking about this.”

Grehan’s gaze doesn’t waver. “We made a deal, Violet. Caitlyn stays if you properly participate in what’s being asked of you. Now, tell me. Why is she better off without you?”

Vi squeezes her eyes shut, hanging her head again. I can’t fucking do this.

“It seems to me that she loves you,” Grehan prompts. “Surely loving a person brings value to their—”

“Loving me hurts her .”

The words feel bitter on her tongue, but she knows they’re true. Rain seems to hammer even harder on the roof of the shelter. She lifts her eyes only to check Cait’s window again, then drops them back to the ground.

Grehan says nothing. Manipulative bastard.

“Cait’s problem,” Vi says, quietly, “is that she loves me no matter what. Look at the state she’s in, because she’s worrying about me rather than taking care of herself. Look what she’s willing to put herself through to make sure I’m okay.”

“It seems to me that there are far worse problems to have,” Grehan says, “than loving a person unconditionally.”

Tears burn at Vi’s eyes. She meets his gaze. “I bring nothing to her life. I don’t know how you can’t see that. I’m—” She gestures at herself, exasperated. “I’m useless. I’m a fucking mess. I need to be thrown in a psych ward before I stop drinking, I find trouble wherever I go, I can’t take care of her like a partner is supposed to—hell, I could barely carry her to the medical wing, I—” Her voice cracks and she hates herself for it. “I’ve lost everyone I’ve ever loved, and every time one of them dies, it’s like I died, too. Like, my, I don’t know—” She swipes angrily at her wet cheeks. “Like there was never anything good in me to begin with. It was everyone else keeping me good. I only had that, I don’t know, fucking life inside of me whilst they were here, and—now—”

The hopelessness, the sheer fucking despair makes her heart feel like it’s physically breaking. Suddenly she’s aware that she isn’t crying quietly. She’s aware that she’s shaking with sobs, the bitter sting of vomit still sharp on her tongue, Grehan’s presence a little closer to her, now, a firm hand on her shaking shoulder. 

She loves Cait more than anyone. 

She’s hurting Cait more than anyone. 

It’s a problem she isn’t sure how to solve. 

Chapter Text

Vi calms down eventually. She always does. 

Grehan gives her space, sitting an arms-length apart from her on the bench. It’s hard to see through the rain now as it falls in fast, relentless sheets. The water blurs the window to the medical wing. Vi can barely see the outline of Cait’s bed, let alone whether she’s awake or not. She opens her mouth to tell Grehan that she wants to go back inside, but the words don’t come easily. 

“It’s fine,” says Grehan, even though she hasn’t said anything. “Take your time.”

There’s a lot she wants to say. She shakes her head, unable to articulate a single thing. She can’t hear her own thoughts over the sound of the rain. She wonders whether she’ll throw up again, tries not to look at the vomit already on the grass. Instinctively, she shuffles away from the vomit. Closer to Grehan. She catches a glimpse of his surprised expression and ignores it, leaning her forearms on her knees, staring down onto the grass. 

She feels Red. She knows this is a Red feeling. This out-of-control, hopeless ache .

She doesn’t know how to tell him.

“I have to ask you, Violet,” Grehan says, now. His voice is so soft that it makes tears burn at her eyes just hearing how gently he speaks to her. Like she’s a little kid. Or an injured animal. She feels like both. “Do you have any plans to end your life?”

Vi feels sick. The question is too sharp, too direct. It cuts through something deep inside of her. A part of her she doesn’t care to admit exists. No, she doesn’t have a plan to die. That’s not the problem. The problem is that she doesn’t have a plan to live . 

How do other people breathe so easily?

How do other people just carry on?

She knows there’s something wrong with her, something broken inside that makes simple things hard, makes things like getting up and not immediately drinking something alcoholic a colossal achievement rather than a casual expectation. She knows that it’s been weeks since that initial conversation where Cait suggested therapy, and Vi fucked it up, and then Cait tried to help again and Vi fucked it up again and now she’s here in residential treatment, in the one place that is supposed to fix her, and she’s somehow still managing to fuck it up. She knows it takes a special kind of person to fuck up so often that it’s just kind of the norm.

Well, maybe special isn’t the word for it.

If Vi were Cait, she would not hang around to watch the trainwreck. She knows Cait is a saint for sticking around this long. She just feels terrible for letting her. 

“Vi,” Grehan prompts. “I need you to check in with me. Do you want to use the colours?”

She swallows. Her throat feels tight and the faint tang of vomit on her tongue nearly makes her gag again, but she forces herself to huff a deep breath in through her nose and say, “R–Red.”

***

Vi got hurt a lot when she was younger. There was only one time when it was serious enough to track down a doctor—a profession few and far between in the undercity. But she remembers being young, and she remembers the doctor asking her to rate her pain. “One is small, like a papercut or a graze,” the doctor had explained. “Ten is the worst pain you’ve ever had.”

Vi had decided, then and there, that she would save the ten for when she really needed it.

She’d been saving the Red, too, she guesses. 

Seems stupid, now. 

***

Grehan asks if she feels safe, and Vi assures him that she does. What’s going to hurt me, here? He asks, again, if she has a plan to take her own life. She doesn’t know why she blushes so furiously—maybe because this feels so self-indulgent somehow—but she assures him that she doesn’t. What could I possibly do, here? He sighs deeply, squeezes her shoulder, and says that they’ll discuss a plan later, when she’s had time to rest. 

They cross the stretch of rain back to the door of the main building. In the dry of the corridor, she slips out of Grehan’s coat and shakes the water from it, gingerly handing it back. He says, “If we move you to a formal submission, how would you feel about that?”

Vi’s heart is heavy. Exhaustion seeps into her bones. She shrugs. “It is what it is.”

He squeezes her shoulder again. They’ve never had this much physical contact before. It’s weird that it doesn’t feel weird, she thinks. 

He says, “Do you have the journal you got in your creative writing class?”

She nods, slowly. She thinks she still has it, anyway. This last week has been a blur. 

“You should go back to your room. Change, brush your teeth, do whatever you need to do before you come back and stay with Caitlyn—but bring the journal.” At her frown, he shrugs. “She might sleep a while, yet. You could try writing down how you’re feeling in the meantime. Might help.”

Her instinct is to scoff at the idea, but Grehan’s been patient and kind of borderline sweet with her, so she just nods and turns away from him before he can say anything else. She follows his instructions: changes, brushes her teeth—and her hair, whilst she’s at it, which is a challenge in itself. Her hair’s getting a little too long, now, but the idea of asking for a pair of scissors in a place like this almost makes her laugh. Maybe they’ll let Cait do it for her, when she’s better.

Cait .

She scoops up the journal, a pen, and the half-blanket from her bed. When she’s back in the medical wing, a nurse brings her over a sugary drink and a plate of biscuits. Vi is a little taken aback by the gesture. The nurse just smiles and says, “She didn’t wake up, by the way, but she’s doing good. She’ll be okay.”

Vi just nods and mumbles a thank you around the lump in her throat. 

***

She sits in the bed by Cait’s side for hours, cradling the journal in her hands. Sometimes, she writes something. It’s never particularly eloquent, definitely not Caitlyn-levels of writing, but she scribbles down some thoughts. Feelings. It’s… whatever. Sometimes the thoughts are a little too dark. She feels embarrassed, kind of, and panicked that someone might read them. She scribbles over them until the page is black. She draws swirls and loops and writes Cait’s name until it all blurs into an inky mess. Then she turns the page and starts writing something else.

“You… drawing me?” Cait’s voice is soft, slurred. When Vi’s head snaps up to see her, her body straightening on instinct, Cait just smiles. There’s still a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead, and her smile is tired, but she looks better than before. The feeling of relief flooding through her body is so physical that Vi almost laughs. Cait squints at her, looking more awake by the second. “Let me see.”

Vi snorts. “No.”

Caitlyn pouts, clears her throat, then rasps, “You have to. I’m sick.”

Vi rolls her eyes. “I’m not drawing you .” She flips the page for Caitlyn to see her tangled mess of doodles. “I’m drawing the inside of my head.”

Cait smiles a little wider. “Can you help me sit up?”

Vi abandons the journal on her bed and stands to help prop one of her own pillows behind Cait’s head. She’s still very pale, her face ashen now that she’s closer, but she’s smiling and so Vi’s heart finally steadies into it’s usual rhythm. The coil of anxiety in her stomach begins to slowly unravel. She helps Cait sit up slightly, then holds the palm of her hand to her cheek. Just checking she’s really here.

“I missed you,” Vi chokes out, feeling suddenly like she could burst into tears.

Cait turns her cheek, kisses the palm of Vi’s hand. “I was right here.”

“I know.”

“You okay?” Cait whispers. Vi wonders if it’s hurting her to talk. Her voice still sounds so sore. Cait keeps her lips close to Vi’s hand as her own fingers snake up Vi’s arm and play with the ends of her hair. “I’m sorry, Vi, I’m so sorry that I—”

“If you’re about to apologise for having pneumonia,” Vi warns, her voice low, “I’m going to kill you for real.”

Cait snorts, tearful. “Alright.”

Vi lets her thumb graze Cait’s forehead. She’s still warm, but her temperature has come down a lot since earlier. “How are you feeling?”

Her girlfriend’s eyes flutter closed. When she speaks, her voice is rough. “My chest hurts.”

“Probably from all the coughing,” Vi murmurs, stroking her fingers through Cait’s hair, pushing it away from her forehead. “I can get a nurse to—”

Cait catches her hand in hers, eyes opening just a little to squint at her. “Could you just… could you hold me?”

That makes Vi smile. She bites her lip. “You won’t be too warm?”

Cait smiles. “If I get too warm, I’ll kick you out. But, here—you’ll have to help me move…”

Vi shifts into the bed beside her. It’s too cramped. It’s verging on uncomfortable. But she settles into Cait, one arm looped around her shoulders, her girlfriend’s heart beating against her chest, and she feels whole . 

“I don’t know if I can stay awake,” Cait whispers, her voice muffled against Vi’s jumper.

Vi can’t help but smile. She rests a hand on Cait’s hair, twists a strand loosely between her fingers. “Go to sleep, Cait.”

“You too?” she mumbles. “Y’need to rest, Vi.”

“Me, too,” Vi promises, kissing her hair. “Me, too.”

Chapter Text

I’ve been sitting with Cait for two days, now. At first, I was shit scared every time she went to sleep. Every time she shut her eyes, I convinced myself she was dead. The nurses started letting me sleep in her bed. The only way I could fall asleep was with two fingers on her wrist so I could feel her pulse through the night.

Stupid, right?

Anyway, it’s easier, now. She’s not dying. She probably wasn’t dying to begin with, but my stupid brain sure thought she was. Now she’s just got a sore throat and what the nurses call ‘extreme fatigue’ which I think it just means super fucking tired. 

My brain feels like it’s fucking fried and I can’t

I’m scared that I’ve given up and I 

I’ve been thinking about Grehan and his stupid fucking traffic light system. I told him I was feeling Red and now I can’t take it back.

I know what that means.

He can pretend there are no consequences to admitting to feeling like that, but I know better. I heard what Sola said one of the first times I met her. She said she got too honest and they locked her up. “ You fuckers tell us to be honest and then when we are you lock us up like crazy people.” That’s what she said. That’s what’s going to happen, now.

I can feel it.

I can’t tell Cait about what I said to Grehan. If I do, she’ll know what I said, about how I was feeling, and… fuck, she doesn’t need that kind of stress, now—not with everything else going on. 

I wish I had the fucking balls to be honest with her. With myself.

Vi closes the notebook and rests her head back against the headboard. She’s become used to the persistent beeping and buzzing of the machinery in the medical wing. There has been another admission, too; another patient brought into this space to break their air of peace. Cait doesn’t seem to mind; she’s barely been awake enough to notice the wailing. 

Vi is trying to grin and bear it, for Cait’s sake. 

But this new patient—their screams and wails and the abuse they hurl at the staff for trying to do their jobs—well, that feels a little too close to home. One of the nurses brings her some earplugs with an apologetic smile. It’s the same nurse that has brought her snacks and drinks and offered to change the bed sheets for the last two days. Finally, this time, Vi makes the effort to ask for her name.

“Allora,” the nurse tells her, keeping her voice soft as to not wake Cait. Vi’s partner is currently asleep with her cheek pressed against the skin of Vi’s bicep. “And I know this is Caitlyn, but you’re…?”

“Vi,” she whispers. 

Allora nods. “I’m sorry about the new admission. They’re in detox. It’ll get worse before it gets better, but then…” She shrugs, smiles in a sad kind of way. “As soon as they’re stable, they’ll move into the main building. But, you know, I hope you and your partner will be out of here by then.”

Vi feels a twinge of relief that Allora doesn’t seem to remember Vi from her own detox, what feels like years ago, now. She hopes, weirdly, that she looks different, now. Maybe she acts different, too. She’s certainly not behaving the way this patient is. There’s a screech and a string of swear words from the other side of the room. Movement behind one of those paper curtains that loops around each bed. Allora flashes her another smile and excuses herself. 

Something is kicked over. Something metallic falls to the floor. Someone says something about sedation. Vi’s heart sounds like it’s in her ears.

The sound must wake Cait—whether it’s the clatter across the room, or Vi’s own racing heartbeat, she doesn’t know. She shifts beside Vi, peels her face away from the skin of Vi’s arm. Where her cheek has been pressed against her, the skin is rose-coloured. 

“Tell me what you’re thinking about,” Cait whispers, her breath hot against Vi’s neck. Cait pulls back so their eyes can meet. “There’s too much going on in that pretty head of yours.”

Vi smirks despite herself. “You think I’m pretty?”

“The prettiest.” Cait shifts again, pushing herself up in the bed and shuffling so that she is facing Vi, her pink cheek pressed against the pillow. Vi shuffles her body too, sets the notebook down between them on the blankets and twists so that she’s mirroring Cait. Her partner smiles; soft, tentative. Her voice is still a little rough. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” It’s instinctive. Automatic, even. She watches something flash across Cait’s face and then quickly mask itself again. “Are… are you?”

The voices across the room, which had softened to a low grumble, begin to raise again. The patient—Vi still isn’t sure of a name or gender, only the aggression they seemed to hold in their voice—was beginning to screech again. “Get your fucking hands off of me—”

Vi’s chest tightens. Her heartbeat is too loud, again; her vision beginning to vignette, and—

Cait’s hand finds Vi’s arm and squeezes. Hard. It pulls Vi out of whatever hurricaine was beginning to take flight in her head, at least. Vi snaps her gaze to Cait’s and finds her partners eyes are wide. Alert. 

“This is a lot,” says Cait. Now that Vi’s eyes are on hers, her grip loosens. Her thumb traces the outline of the tattoos on Vi’s arm. “Hearing someone go through what you went through.”

Ah . Then she has been awake, some of the time, at least, to hear what’s been going on. Drifting in and out, maybe, as her body chases off the last of the fever. 

Vi squeezes her eyes shut, forces out a strained whisper: “Yeah. It’s a lot.”

Cait doesn’t say anything. 

“Was I that bad?” Vi opens her eyes to meet Cait’s with a desperation she hadn’t expected. “When I was here—you were here for part of it, right? Was I just as bad as—”

“You were sick,” Cait murmurs, shifting closer. “In withdrawal. Nobody blames you, nobody holds it against you. It’s the…” Cait chews on her bottom lip, searching for the right words. “...The nature of the disease, I suppose.”

Vi swallows thickly and tries to let that be enough.

“You told me once,” Vi whispers, a sudden lump in her throat, “that you’d love me regardless.”

“Yes.”

“Regardless of what?”

“Anything.” Cait doesn’t miss a beat. She loops her fingers through Vi’s. Tears prick at Vi’s eyes as Cait runs a soft thumb over her knuckles. “I mean that, Vi. It is so important to me that you believe me when I say that. I will love you regardless of anything.”

One hand still intertwines with Cait’s, Vi swipes her free hand against her cheeks, smearing damp tears across her face.

“Violet,” Cait murmurs, something urgent in her eyes. “Tell me you believe that.”

Vi’s throat feels like it’s closing up. “I’m starting to,” she says, and her voice comes out all strangled and weird. “I mean—you’re still here, aren’t you?” Cait’s fingers tighten in hers: a confirmation. “You never left me. You never got tired of looking after me, you—you—”

You stayed.

“I know you’re not always honest with me when I ask you if you’re okay,” says Cait, her eyes shining. “I would…” She clears her throat, and Vi’s chest physically aches to see her looking so unsure of herself. “I know it’s really hard, but… I would really, really like you to try.”

Vi swallows. “Try?”

Cait meets her eyes. “Try to be honest with me.” She shrugs her shoulders ever so slightly. “I mean, what have we got to lose? You’re already here, I’m already…” She trails off, then shakes her head. “I promise I won’t get scared or angry with you. I promise I’ll give you space if you need it and I’ll be right beside you if you don’t. It would just make me feel better if I knew how you were really feeling, you know?”

“I know.” Why does it feel like every syllable has to be choked out? “I… It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, Cait, it’s that…” Vi’s hands ball into fists. “Fuck, I’m not good at words, okay? I don’t always know how to say things, and I get all wrapped up in my head, and…”

Vi trails off, and Cait waits patiently to see if she’s going to continue. When she doesn’t, Cait says: “I’ll help you articulate, if you need me to. I can ask questions, I can… I don’t know. I just want to help, Vi. I just want to help you.”

Her voice breaks just in time with Vi’s heart.

Vi pushes herself up in bed and scoops Caitlyn into her arms. Cait’s leg tangles with hers. Her face buries into Vi’s t-shirt. The voices still echo across the room, but Vi can barely hear them, now. She can hear the soft thud of her own heartbeat, gentler now than before, and the rustle of sheets as Cait loops their ankles together, and her girlfriend’s solid, reassuring breathing against her chest. 

“I love you,” Vi promises. 

Cait nestles in a little closer. “Love you, too.”