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Chapter Text

♪ This world is a wasteland

Where nothing can grow-♪

"Wait!" He urged.

The sound of the familiar and missed voice waking up her senses.

Not this again...

Why him?

"I just wanna talk to you." What's the point?

"Get out of here, Ekko." It doesn't matter.

Get out of my mind.

"I-I just—" 

◁◁◁◁

She hears panting and the gears of a machine working, snapping her out of herself.

"I just wanna talk to you, Pow-" No... "Jinx."

Who's who? And why does it even matter?

Does it?...

◁◁◁◁

He grunts, smoke coming out of him, the little blue particles around, lighting him up as the blood trailed down his face to the ground. Is he real?

You? Why you? Why now? 

"You're too late, Ekko." It's too late for me.

"Wait!" She can still hear his voice before everything goes quiet.

◁◁◁◁

It's exhausting; it's hurtful.

Over and over again. The wounds on his skin only adding up, the loss of words...

The look in her eyes every time.

The numbness of her voice.

The tears on her cheeks.

The seemingly inevitable scene, over and over again.

Doing everything he could to stop her.

Every time the image of her last moment replaying in his head as he tried once more to save her.

And he was never able to reach her.

Grunting, the boy leans on the fence.

He's tired; he seems defeated. This is truly real... Isn't it?

He looks her in the eyes as his words find their way to her.

"Always a dance with you." They sink in.

You...

She looks down at the machine he's holding.

Looking away from his eyes.

What is he even doing here?

How did he find me?

Even after everything... She could still see her past childhood friend.

Could he see her?

Can you see me, Ekko?

"I think I'm just gonna sit here a minute." She follows his every move with her gaze.

He looks beaten down suddenly. Again... What is he doing here?

Why?

How?

"You know, catch my breath." She could only wonder why. Her mind just couldn't seem to process the doubts his mere presence in the room at this very specific moment brought.

"See if I can talk an old friend out of blowing us up." He tries. 

A failed attempt at a lighthearted laugh turns into a worried kind of sigh, hinting at all the concern he felt; it hung in the air, changing the course of her thoughts.

Everything about this felt... Indescribable.

She noticed the way he looked at her... Why?

It had to be you again, didn't it?

"I'm tired of talking." I'm sorry, Ekko.

There are things that just can't be fixed.

It was good to see you one last time, little man.

She jumps, in an attempt to prevent once again taking the life of someone she cared for.

Like she did with everyone else.

Thank you for trying.

I'm just tired of fighting.

Of spinning in the same place.

"No!" He screams once more, rushing to try and catch her, failing again, not able to reach her.

Too far to protect her.

Too far to save her.

◁◁◁◁

His own voice ringing in his mind as once again everything rewound. 

He sighs, relieved.

It's tiring, but he won't give up on her, not again.

As long as he can get her back, he will fight.

He won't lose her again, not this time.

"You know, I learned from someone..." He carefully gets closer to her. She looks at him curiously, "very special..." he looks away for a bit "that no matter what happened in the past," His eyes full of care and hope. "it's never too late to build something new." Her eyes fall back to his machine, her attention caught by the little monkeys spinning inside of it.

A reminder of her past self, her past failures...

Yet, Ekko used them for something new.

Whatever that thing was, he made it somewhat thinking of her.

He found her, fought for her.

Whatever that thing was, it had something that once only meant destruction, and now it was harmless... 

Whatever that thing was, it was helping Ekko. And she somehow was part of it.

He put the pieces back together, the past into something new.

"Someone worth building it for." He looks into her eyes sincerely. She looks back at him, as she slowly realizes what he means with this last sentence. 

A strong feeling, she can't quite be sure how to identify yet, glowing in his eyes.

Why?

Why Ekko?

Why me?

Her eyes trail away, her mind not sure how to work with all of this. Herself not sure what to do.

She can feel everything in her; she feels his presence; she feels her heart beating faster. A knot in her throat as she felt her own breathing getting heavier and her eyes watering.

Jinx closes her eyes, almost forgetting how to breathe.

A sudden warmth enveloping her.

The arms around her body surprising her.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jinx asks defensive as Ekko tightens the grip on her.

She freezes on the spot.

"Let me—" She starts again, closing her eyes, about to fight to free herself.

"I won't let you go again." He interrupts, his voice full of determination with a streak of guilt.

His phrasing resonates in her mind.

Why?

Why not?

"Living up to the title, boy saviour, huh?" She looks down to her hands, the grenade still glowing dangerously between her fingers.

She couldn't.

She wouldn't.

She could feel his heart beating fast against her back.

You're real.

"I can always count on you to get in my way, right?..." She lets out a heavy sigh, chuckling bitterly.

"I gave up on you before... I won't do it again." The boy buries his face on her shoulder. The bit of tenseness in her body dissolving as she felt how vulnerable he truly was being with her, the honesty in his voice, and the care he had in holding her.

The caring gesture so sudden it didn't even allow her mind to reject it or to get triggered by. 

He wasn't hurting her, but the touch wasn't too soft to make her mind get conflicted. 

"It's old news, little man... Everyone who got close died. It doesn't sound like a good deal for you..." She diverts away to the emptiness in front of her. "I just can't do it anymore... It's exhausting to care and then ruin everything." Her eyes started to fill with the burden as the little girl's smile shined in her memory once again.

"Not everyone did." He tries, feeling that something has changed drastically in the Jinx he thought he knew while he was gone.

"They either died or left..." A single tear falls to the ground.

"I'm here." He states firmly.

The confidence in his voice giving her a sense of stability and comfort she had been longing for.

"I... I'm not ready..." to face it. 

She thinks in a whisper.

"It's my fault..." There was no one left.

She wanted her sister to be happy; she couldn't jinx it again.

Vi deserved it. She had to go.

But it suddenly wasn't so easy anymore.

Why?

Why did she have to go?

Why did you do that, kid?

It was her fault that she ended up that way.

Wasn't it?

She ruined everything.

Everyone.

Herself.

"There is a beauty in changes." He says softly. 

"I can't change, Ekko." She denies, hopeless.

"I think you already did." 

She can't bring herself to say anything as she hears how he's able to see something in her.

"[Don't] let me go..." She pleads, uncertain about what she wants him to actually do.

"Don't you go saying goodbye already..." He catches her attention, a melancholy in his tone as he tries to sound light. "This time you won't push me away." He tightens the hug. "I'm not going anywhere." His voice now flooded with determination once more, making her eyes water, the tears about to fall.

All the right words... 

The words she had been craving to hear since... 

How could he?

"Why?" She finally lets out the question that had been wandering in her mind since the moment he spoke his first word. "I'm not... I'm not her..."

Jinx meant the ones she looked up to in some way.

The ones who were stronger than her, who would handle all of this better than her. 

Her past self... The one she thought she hated, before she saw her in those sparkly amber eyes.

But Ekko didn't know that. The word "her" reminded him of the look in the eyes of the other version of Powder he met. 

The Powder that reminded him of the hope he nurtured and was never able to let go of towards his Powder. No matter how long he had lied to himself that he didn't feel.

Powder... Jinx... 

Whatever she chose to call herself, or that others forced onto her, he knew there wasn't that big of a difference between the two. No matter how much he fought this fact in the past. 

He knows she doesn't have to change to whatever she thinks she has, she just needs to remember that everything Powder was and everything Jinx was, are all that she is. 

"Because of you. You can't give up on yourself, not again. She wouldn't want that." He chooses to answer her, not in the way she wanted him to, not in any way she thought she needed to hear. 

"I'll miss her, Ekko..." She confesses out loud for the first time. 

Every inch of her was sure of how much she needed that child, that smile, that laugh, her hug... 

But she wasn't able to say it out loud; she didn't have someone to confess it to. Until now. 

She didn't have someone who would hug her like she did, who loved her for who she is and not for who she used to be. 

At least that was what she thought she wanted...

Isha didn't care who was Jinx and who was Powder... She just looked up to her.

The kid cared about her since the beginning. 

And because of that... She lost her. 

Ekko waited, he knew Jinx had more to say. He also did, but he was here to listen to everything he cowardly doomed her to hold in all these years, not having anyone to let it out to. 

"I... I—" He could sense the reluctance she felt as her voice sounded shaky and faltered.

He knew she needed encouragement; he knew she was broken. But he felt such relief to be able to hear the sadness in her voice, contrasting with the complete emotionless vibration stuck to his mind that she used to announce when he had failed once more before he had to rewind again.

It appeased his mind to perceive her emotions, understand her, even if just for a bit.

He felt the weight on his shoulders. 

He could've prevented it, protected her, saved her...

Ekko calmly turns her to face him, waiting for her to look into his eyes.

He could swear he saw her eyes shine that faded violet-blue tone she used to show him when they were kids. The same defenseless grayish color he saw that night on the bridge, the eyes that haunted him ever since the moment the glow of her innocence vanished from them.

The same innocence he swore he saw... That night on the bridge.

"She's here..." He gently places his hand on her chest, where her heartbeat was almost unnoticeable. 

He knew she wasn't talking about herself.

There was something that drove her to this literal borderline.

And he knew that this same something, someone, was what could make her find the will, deep down inside herself, to keep breathing, maybe even smile again. 

He missed her laugh. Hearing other Powder's laugh, he couldn't help but reminisce about the precious memories he held with his Powder when she was a kid. It had been so long since he heard that. 

He didn't want to be greedy, to get his hopes too high, and not be able to help her to even get close to a point where she could feel free like that again.

The slightest genuine curl on her lips would be way more than enough for him in these circumstances, but surely not now.

Ekko only wanted to make sure she felt safe, or at least a bit less hopeless. 

He didn't expect her to trust him so soon; he knew it wasn't this simple. 

He watched as her eyes filled with an emotion he had never seen, a feeling he would've never imagined he could get from her, much less after everything that went down between the two of them up until this point in time, even though he wasn't sure what that was exactly. 

He saw as her lips parted slightly in surprise, she didn't let it show, yet he could see through her defenses in this moment. But nothing about it would make him back away; he was there to stay. This time he wasn't going to falter, he wasn't going to leave her again, and he wasn't going to give up so easily again.

He didn't back away.

He stared into her almost confused but softened orbs as she stared back.

She knew that he probably had no idea about what she was talking about, and she also knew he was trying to understand it nonetheless.

If there was someone who could come close to understanding her, that someone was him. 

Ekko.

I'm glad it's you.

It came back to her again.

This time it wasn't about the show, it wasn't about the well-orchestrated part she had always been playing with her own life.

He came. 

He came against all the odds, all the possibilities she thought.

All the predicted outcomes.

He was a crack on the plan. 

The little puzzle piece she forgot was hanging around her all the time.

That came and knocked her carefully crafted cardcastle to the ground at the last round. 

She didn't want him to come.

She didn't wish for him to come.

She didn't expect him to come.

Not even deep inside her heart did she hope he would come.

Not even for a second. 

She didn't, and she wouldn't lie about that.

Because she truly didn't.

But I'm glad he did.

She thought. And the thought sank inside her heart.

She was glad, relieved that he showed up.

Why?

She couldn't make sense of it, but she felt it.

And that's why it worked.

She looks down to his hand still over her heart.

Her eyes start to water again, but this time the tears don't take too long to start to flow down uncontrollably.

Ekko takes his hand away but quickly takes her in his arms again, startling Jinx, who doesn't bother to think too much about it just lets herself be embraced, burying her face on his chest.

He held her close, listening to her quiet sobs, feeling his shirt getting drenched by her tears.

And besides the heartbreaking atmosphere of the scene, Ekko felt so light; he felt like he could almost breathe again, he was glad...

Glad that she was finally letting out everything he was sure she only let out when she was alone, when no one would hear her.

He knew she needed a hug; he wished he could've been there for her before everything went downhill...

He wishes he wouldn't have given up so easily. 

But even if he wasn't there, even if he failed before... This time he'd make sure there would be absolutely no room for failure. 

He held her tighter, her arms falling to the sides of her own shaky body, the grenade still being held strongly by her. 

Yet, none of them were thinking about it. 

Neither had forgotten about it. But both knew it wasn't the priority. 

Ekko was worried about it still being on her hand, but she was his focus. 

Jinx could feel it clearly on her palm, the coldness of it, the hurtful little pieces against her bruised skin, the pin risky against her finger. 

But the fact that she didn't enjoy its feeling, nor wished for the relief of the explosion, was the center of her attention on it. 

At some point Jinx just felt like giving up.

Her entire body simply giving up on her. Her feet didn't have the strength to hold her own weight anymore. It felt like she was only able to walk from the adrenaline of ending it all.

As if she hadn't the will to give up, she didn't have the strength to hold on.

Ekko felt her body faltering, falling completely against him. He quickly adjusted his arms to hold her in place, supporting her with his own body.

For Jinx, it felt like she had been shut down like a machine, yet the tears couldn't seem to stop. She hated it, but she couldn't do anything about it.

Ekko held her until he felt the tears had stopped.

He noticed as the little control she still had over her body started to vanish, he quickly reached to take the grenade off her hand before something went wrong.

Ekko calmly carried Jinx to the couch he knew was somewhere around the lab.

He carefully laid her down, letting her rest a bit. He knew she needed that and much more.

He was a very attentive and perceptive person. He had already noticed how thin Jinx had always been and how sometimes it seemed like it got worse.

As much as he forced himself to not care about her, as he was forced to see her only as an enemy, the creator of chaos. And tried to ignore the fact that she was simply a pawn of the broken society they were forced to grow up in, which pushed them to opposite sides of the same cursed cycle. Even if he tried hard, he couldn't help but find himself wondering about her, her whereabouts, worrying about her, worrying about the most simple things he wished he didn't have to wonder about.

He knew she was by no means weak, not less of a threat among the numerous dangers of Zaun. Actually growing to become the biggest threat not only in Zaun but even to Piltover.

Which only infuriated and aggravated Ekko's despise and hatred towards the now dead and buried Silco, which he nurtured not only for his personal and political reasons but also for what he could clearly see from outside.

After all, he knew that behind all that power, all that manic exterior, that well-crafted traumatized weapon Silco used to do his dirty work, was a girl. One that he knew all too well, one that he knew needed help. And the same one that refused his help before, that believed in whatever lie Silco told her, and replicated that to him.

He was weak, he should've tried harder.

He always worried, he was never able to let go of the care he had for her.

And he knew it was justifiable, even if he didn't want to accept it at the time.

Now he didn't have to fight it anymore; he didn't want to.

He cared; he worried. And this time he was going to do something about it, this time he was going to take care of her like he used to wonder if someone was doing for her.

He felt as he hugged her, as she fell on him, she was thin and light like paper... She was cold as ice; she felt so fragile, so vulnerable, as if the tiniest careless touch would break her to pieces.

He knew what he had to do, what he wanted to do.

He carefully placed his Z-Drive next to the couch and started looking through the stuff on the lab.

It was intriguing to him how it was so different from the one in the other reality, yet so similar.

Some things exactly in the same place, others he knew couldn't be there, and more things he could understand as unique to his Jinx. 

There were drawings, drawings he knew were made by her, and a lot of others that seemed to have been made by a kid. There were a lot of drawings of Jinx, a lot of her smiling.

He saw one, pinned next to the shattered mirror. He could identify Sevika, Jinx, and a child between them. 

That was probably who she was talking about... 

He walked over to where he knew he had left his jacket lying around when he rushed to talk to Jinx, taking it and coming back to cover her with it.

He knew he needed more things if he wanted to be able to do anything there, but he also knew he had other priorities before he could even start thinking about something else.

He took one of the crayons lying around and a piece of paper.

He wrote a note and left it on top of the Z-Drive in case Jinx woke up before he had come back.

Ekko looked at her once more; flashbacks came crashing into his mind, haunting. He came a bit closer, unsure if she was still breathing. The girl shifted her position a bit as her face twitched.

The boy sighed relieved as he felt like he had been holding his breath.

He ensured he took anything she could use to maybe hurt herself from the lab, even if he was aware that if she truly wanted to, she would find a way. But he was at ease because he could feel that she wasn't so determined to end it all anymore.

He rushed away to the Firelight base.

To make sure he could get everything he needed to take care of her.

...

Jinx slowly flickered her eyes open.

Desperation and desolation heaving her entire body and unwinding her breathing as she looked around her lab filled with a deafening silence, doubting painfully if everything was simply a cruel dream, one of the most hurtful tricks her mind played with her.

Her body couldn't bear the intensity with which she breathed, her muscles trembling in weakness, as she almost couldn't hold herself sitting.

And before her vision started to become blurry, she noticed lying on her lap... Ekko's jacket.

Everything seemed to slow down.

The quiet wasn't bombarding her mind anymore, nor was the complete emptiness suffocating her.

Jinx could see everything as it was again.

She tried to get up from the couch, but she almost couldn't feel her own feet. Looking down at them, she noticed the strange machine Ekko had been holding the entire time they talked.

The concrete proof of the belief he had in her. 

The fact that he left it with her simply solidified the answers to the doubts that were building up after she realized that everything wasn't just a hallucination. 

There was something on top of it, a note.

"Don't jump to conclusions, scaredy-cat. I'll come back, just had to go get some stuff.

You can investigate or anything you want with the Z-Drive, I know you're dying to.

 

Be back in a blink, Ekko."

She snickered as she finished reading.

The fact that he knew she'd worry, that he imagined she'd be bored and would doubt if he would really come back. So he left not only a note answering the questions that she wouldn't have time to dwell on but also whatever that device was to prove that he had to and would come back. 

It was funny to her that his handwriting wasn't that far from the one she recalled, and the note being written with green crayon made it look all the more nostalgic, and to Jinx... comical.

She thought about not only the thought process he had while writing it but also the choice of words and the humorous fact that he found it necessary to sign the note as if there was anyone else who could've written it.

Jinx giggled to herself at the idea of such a serious, calculating, and smart leader like Ekko, this version of grown-up Ekko that she had always seen from far away, being a bit... silly, like that.

It gave his image a newfound softness in her mind.

On the little time they had, it not being a dream nor a hallucination made Jinx feel differently about it all.

She knew he wasn't the kid who used to play with her.

At least she thought he wasn't anymore.

They changed.

He changed.

She changed.

Neither were like they used to be.

Powder had dreams, dreams Jinx couldn't recall nor tried to.

"Little man" had dreams, dreams she wondered if he fulfilled.

Dreams she didn't know if she hoped he still fought for.

They grew up.

Together but apart.

Almost too far away to get a good look, but always in each other's peripherals. 

Always surrounding each other.

Maybe even on the same side of the big coin, but on opposite ends of the spectrum.

She had wondered about him before.

She knew they weren't that different, and that was what infuriated her before.

They lost everything; people left them, broke them, forgot about them, died.

Then how could he? How could he just accept it?

Now was the time for her to question him about everything, how he did it... If she could do it...

When he first tried, she felt conflicted.

She was astonished that he came for her; she was happy that she hadn't lost him like everyone else. But he was there for Powder, he was there for the weak version of her that NEEDED saving, that wasn't strong enough to do things on her own without messing it all up. And that was what enraged her. Powder wasn't there for him to save, and he wanted nothing to do with Jinx.

When he kept on trying, it just proved to her he didn't care about Jinx like everyone else; he just wanted to find Powder somewhere and bring her back.

She thought she hated that. But she remembers how lonely she felt when he stopped showing up. How she kept on looking through her window hoping to find him hopping around.

He proved he only wanted to save Powder, he wasn't there for Jinx.

After that, she never saw him truly. Sometimes here and there with the firelights. 

They never spoke to each other again. Until that night on the bridge.

That night was... something. Jinx thought she hated the way he looked at her, the way she could read every emotion that went through them, every memory, every word. 

He had become cold, closed off. Just another one in Zaun hunting her down, hating and cursing her under his breath around the busy streets. Another background noise, just not directly hurting her brain. Yet the thought of him made her uncomfortable for some reason.

It was an untied line, a loose end, an unfinished drawing, and it rubbed her the wrong way.

She thought it had been the end back when they were young, when she pushed him away, when he gave up, when he let go.

She thought she was sure that he hated her like everyone else, that he was ready to make her pay for everything wrong she had done and to kill her. She thought she was sure of who he had become, of how he saw her.

But that night on the bridge changed everything. It shattered everything she thought she was certain about him, about the people that she lost, about the past.

It didn't make sense for him not to go through with it; it didn't make sense for the image she had of him.

The light in his eyes, the way he looked at her, he transmitted every shattered hope, every hurt memory, every broken promise, every forgotten feeling. And for a second, she didn't hate the past, she didn't hate the memories, she didn't hate the hope she saw faltering in his eyes.

For a moment... She didn't care to feel; she didn't care to listen to his silent plea to see Powder again, just for a moment.

And she knew she would never forget that look in his eyes. 

She couldn't process everything that meant for her back then.

Because back then, once again, she literally blew everything up.

Becoming a literal abomination, and it all implicated losing him again, making him give up again.

She was certain that if he doubted it even for a second that night, after what she had done, now he would never trust her again. Now she had become the full-on monster everyone else saw.

But there he was again, proving her wrong once more.

That had been the last time they saw each other, and she didn't have the time to think about it, to doubt it, to hope, to hurt...

So much happened after that, too much.

But one thing she was certain about was that he wouldn't want to see her again.

She didn't want that either.

But he came.

He tried.

He fought.

He didn't let go this time.

He didn't give up.

He didn't let her give up.

And again, it didn't make sense.

But he did.

For some reason, even if everything he did didn't make sense, he did.

Somehow... He made sense to her.

Not him being there, not him trying, not his words, not his intentions, not how he did it, not why.

But him, he did.

She carefully folded the note and put it in her pocket before reaching out to hold the "Z-Drive."

She wasn't physically weak, even if she chose to fight from a distance, it didn't mean she was weak; she made sure not to be. So feeling herself struggle to even pick up some random machine like that made her feel miserable, once again she had fucked herself up.

Holding it in her hands, she could clearly see the thought and effort put into it.

I can't believe he left it with me.

Not a wise choice, I could destroy this thing by disassembling it or doing something else with it.

She thought, and it reminded her once more...

He trusted me with it...

I could destroy whatever this project of his is, and yet... he left it with me...

Dumb little boy...

She smiled weakly at herself as she processed the weight of the meaning behind this simple gesture.

She rested it on her lap on top of his jacket.

Rotating it and analyzing everything she could see from the outside, the monkeys being the most prominent and unmistakable spotlight of the piece. Making her wonder why he made it that way, why he had his mind on something that could remind him of her, and what she had to do with whatever that thing was.

She was curious about that thing since the second she noticed it on his arms, but the curiosity wasn't even a quarter of the pure desperation and emptiness she felt before, so she didn't bother to think about it.

She knew that thing saved Ekko somehow, she knew it was what helped him save her. She was more than intrigued.

Jinx placed it next to her on the couch, noticing some kind of pullstring on the machine. She pulled it, and nothing seemed to happen. She kept on doing it; she rotated the timer next to it to the second mark in there and pulled strongly again—only noticing that it made the jacket on her lap fall when it came back to her lap after the machine stopped working.

...

Chapter Text

♪No one tried

To read my eyes

No one but you♪ 

With a backpack on his back that included everything he would need to help and care for her, as well as some items to show her how much he and the rest of the city needed her assistance, Ekko cautiously made his way into the lab.

He walked over slowly as he was not sure if she was still asleep or not and didn't want to scare her or wake her up like that. 

The boy was greeted with a somewhat relieving image of Jinx covered with his jacket, immersed in reassembling his Z-Drive.

"You're back..." She said lowly, taking him by surprise. 

He knew she had a very good sense of her surroundings; it wasn't for nothing that she was never caught by anyone in Zaun or Piltover. She was skilled, intelligent, and attentive. 

"Guess you've already satisfied your curiosity, huh?" He tried, a bit uncertain if being that lighthearted was the right way to go about talking with her. 

He was worrying about how he wrote it and every word he drew on that note the entire way to the firelight base. He worried if it had been too vague, if she would doubt it, if it was enough, if leaving her by herself was safe, if he wasn't making a mistake, if she would be there when he came back, if she would even see the note, if it was stupid...

So seeing her there, like that, just brought such relief and peace to his mind and heart that he wasn't even sure how to properly work or how to respond. 

"Not really," she answered, still tightening a few screws. "You have a lot to explain, actually." She looked over at him, and as soon as he noticed, he hurried over.

He placed the bag next to the couch and started looking for something in it. 

He wondered if she had enough strength to go around the lab to take the tools she needed to disassemble the Z-Drive, but he planned to ask everything and answer all after he was sure she was better. 

"Weren't you scared that I would..." Her voice was low, and she didn't try to look his way, even if she wanted to see his reaction. "Break your precious machine?" She tries to joke as he finally finds one of the boxes he filled with different types of food. 

He brought everything he could, from every kind of nut he could find to a full-on meal, as he knew she needed to eat something but was afraid that whatever he brought wouldn't be what she wanted or would accept to eat.

He had to make a decision quickly, not to make it too difficult, and try to make it more natural for her. 

He decided to just give her a fruit, a simple piece of watermelon. 

One of the healers at the Firelight base told him that beyond providing water and enough sugar, it also helped with blood circulation. And it was easy to digest. Since he didn't know how long she had been without eating, he didn't want to take any risks with that. 

"No. I wasn't." He sat on the couch, looking at her and handing her the piece of watermelon. 

Jinx stared at him, first a bit surprised that he had confirmed what she had deduced by the note and the entire gesture itself... He trusted her for some twisted, unknown reason. 

Or maybe she knew the reason... But it didn't make sense that after all of that, he still trusted her. After all she had done...

She then looked down at his hands, handing her the fruit, and she stared back at him a bit confused. 

"I'll answer anything you wanna ask, but you have to eat something first." He said firmly. 

Jinx stared at it, then at the determined look on his face, and let go of the screwdriver she had. 

She slowly took the watermelon from his hands and saw as he smiled slightly. 

It intrigued her how and why he cared. But he did. And she wasn't sure how she felt upon realizing this.

"If you don't want that, I have other stuff here too." He said, starting to look through the backpack. 

Jinx carefully took a small bite out of it. 

Tasting what for her was nothing more than crispy sweet water. But it tasted refreshing and, for some reason, sweeter than any other watermelon she had eaten before—not that it had been that many.

"Where'd you get the tools?" He asked a bit more relaxed as he realized Jinx was slowly eating the fruit.

"I have a couple of the essentials all around the place." She answered nonchalantly as she chewed, staring only at the Z-Drive between them. "How did you make this thing?"

"It's a long story..." He said, not sure where to begin.

"That's some kind of hextech, isn't it?" She finally looks at him. "You said you'd answer anything; no backing away now." Jinx frowns; she knows he'll keep his promise, but she doesn't like the way he's being reluctant.

"I'm just not sure where to start..." He answers, scratching his nape nervously.

There was so much. He had so much he wanted to tell her—how the alternate universe was, how she was there, the amazing things they did, how she helped him build it...

But he worried something he said would make her feel bad and make her wonder about all that isn't and not what can be.

"From the beginning, I guess?" She said jokingly, and it slightly soothed down his anxiety, as he realized Jinx was open to hearing anything, just genuinely curious, and comfortable enough to try a joke.

"There's so much... I think you already noticed, but" He wonders how he should tell her this. "You helped me build this. I couldn't have done it without you." He said.

Ekko's honesty only confuses Jinx further.

She had figured he made that thinking about her in some way, but she couldn't understand if he meant that metaphorically or literally. His words were too certain; she could feel it, feel that he meant it as if she had been by his side every step of the way.

"Elaborate, pre-" The blue-haired girl coughed, trying to dismiss her, almost letting her thoughts out loud. 

"You okay?" Ekko worried, quickly taking a bottle of juice and handing it to her.

Jinx took it and drank a lot of it in one go, trying to stay composed as she felt him watching her, worried.

"I'm fine." She says, signaling for him to keep on talking.

"Well... It's a complicated story, but when trying to find what was happening to the tree at the firelight base, I ended up on the failsafe under the gemstone mesh, and somehow we interfered with the Arcane..." Ekko hesitated, not sure how to explain it in short sentences.

"The Arcane?" Jinx asked, a bit confused but mostly intrigued, after finishing the piece of watermelon.

"Yeah, it's a kind of realm like wild, raw magic. An anomaly in it transported and scattered us across realities and time." He tried to explain, and he knew how unreal it all sounded.

He reached to take more things for Jinx to eat.

"You sure you didn't hit your head on the way here, science boy?" Jinx tilted her head with an almost funny look of confusion on her face.

Ekko wished the unrealistic sound of everything he was trying to explain would maybe take a chuckle out of her for its insanity, yet he got nothing more than a slight head tilt and a sarcastic question. But that was enough for him; at least she was curious and responsive; that was already more than he could ask.

"I know it sounds stupid, but it's true." He said, handing her a turkey sandwich, which she easily accepted.

She took a small bite out of it, sending him a suspicious glare.

Ekko sighed; he knew it wouldn't be easy to make someone believe something like that, and he wasn't sure how to tell her everything, but he knew he wanted her to know the potential she has, for her not to give up on trying for herself.

"So what was it like?" Jinx wasn't sure if she had figured out everything already, but she wanted to hear it from his mouth. 

She wanted to see what his thoughts were about everything that happened, why, and how he decided to come after her after everything he lived there.

It was indeed stupid; it sounded like something she would make up to get out of trouble when she was a kid.

Silly things kids imagine or dream about when they don't have anything else to worry about.

But she knew he was telling the truth, not because she trusted him—even if she felt like she did—but because she had figured out his machine; she knew it had some kind of time-traveling power mechanism, so it made sense that after he went through that, he found a way to recreate it, the said "anomaly," by using the stones and runes.

"It..." He looked surprised at her, realizing that she had apparently accepted the "nonsense" he had just told her. "It was different, very different."

"Was it better?" She asked, wondering about the possibilities of said realities.

She wondered if there was a reality in which it would be possible for her not to doom the ones she loved to hurtful endings.

She wondered if there was a reality in which she and that stubborn little kid could've been happy.

One in which both she and her sister were able to find peace together, where their family wasn't torn apart...

"It made me realize that there's always another possibility, a different way to look at things, and that there's always another chance to create something better." Ekko took the Z-Drive, looking through its details, recalling every moment he spent working on it with Powder and Heimerdinger. He breathed in before locking eyes with the blue-haired girl in front of him. "You showed me that... Or better, reminded me of that. That's why I need you—the city needs you."

She was able to feel his emotions piercing through her eyes. 

She didn't know why he believed in her, why he thought she could do this.

"Why?" She asks lowly, breaking the eye contact.

"I know what you did while I was gone. You inspired people, and you saved them. You brought back hope and strength for them to fight." Ekko points out, and Jinx could swear she heard pride in his voice.

"I'm not—"

"That's what I wanted to do. I wanted people to have hope, to fight for each other, to keep trying." He interrupts before she could deny. "But I got lost along the way... I gave up on this goal and settled down. I shouldn't have. Shouldn't have given up on you either." He looked sincerely apologetic to her.

"I'm sorry..." She looked down at her hands. "I'm sorry for hurting you, Ekko. For pushing you away." Her voice faltered as she realized that he was everything she had left, aside from her sister, and that she once again was the one who had ruined it. "I'm... I don't know if I can be who you want me to be..." The tears start flowing again.

"I don't want you to be anyone else. I want you to keep being you." He carefully gets closer to her. "I want you to see who you truly are, not to focus on your mistakes but the great things you're capable of." He starts taking off his gloves as she tries to wipe away the tears that can't seem to stop. "The past is in the past, and we're leaving it there to focus on the present and to build a better future." 

Ekko gently pulls her chin up, attempting to tell her what he feels truthfully. "I don't need you to change; I don't want you to." He gently holds her face between his hands. "I just hope you can believe and give yourself a chance." He says calmly, wiping away the tears as they stare at each other.

He missed the blue tone her round eyes used to shine at him, and he could swear behind that darkened pink he could see it again.

Ekko didn't hate it; he at first thought that change would just solidify how different Jinx and the girl he used to know were... But the way she looked at him, the tears in her eyes, the confused and vulnerable look... They were exactly the same as the ones that used to look up at him when his former childhood best friend tripped over after trying to copy her sister's kick or after she had punched a wall too hard by accident, hurting herself.

So much has changed.

Everything has changed.

But nothing had at the same time.

When he looked into her eyes, it was as if he was being transported back to his most precious memories.

Yes, she was different. 

The pink contrasted drastically from the grayish blue the other Powder had, yet he could understand what she was pleading from the inside so easily that it felt just the same.

As much as it would make sense for him to seemingly know that Powder better since she was the Powder he knew when he was a kid...

She wasn't; Jinx was. He knew her, what she went through; he had watched her enough, watched her grow up to become who she had become. She was his Powder, his Jinx.

And he knew her better.

Jinx weakly held his wrists, closing her eyes and letting the teardrops flow down.

"Why can't they stay?" She whispered softly, as if she didn't want him to hear. "Why do I always make everyone leave?" Jinx felt as if her body was betraying her, as if her lungs were closing in, not allowing her to breathe.

"You have to stop blaming yourself for everything. You should start to wonder what you should do after and not why they left." Ekko held her face up, making Jinx look at him, his palms pressing her cheeks slightly. 

The sight was priceless to him; he wasn't able to hold in a slight smile. 

She was still the cute girl he had met. Still fierce, unpredictable, scared, vulnerable, and the untameable flame that she had always been, just now broken.

But still the most beautiful soul he had ever seen, she had just lost the connection to herself to see the same spark he could still see fighting to come out inside of her own tired orbs.

"I won't leave." He meant it, and she knew it.

Jinx could only close her eyes as she tried to steady herself. Her heart racing as she struggled to breathe.

Ekko gently stuck his forehead onto hers, catching her by surprise. "Just focus on my breathing, okay?" he said before she could open her eyes. "Try to listen to my heartbeat." He suggested, caressing her upper cheeks not too softly, making sure she could feel his fingertips against her skin, attempting to help her stay grounded.

Jinx squeezed his wrists, not with too much strength, her hands shaky as her head throbbed. She was more than grateful that he was real, that she could feel him, that she wasn't alone.

She tried to do as he said; it was easier to pay attention to his breathing as it slightly brushed against her chin and hit the back of her fingers clasped around his skin.

It enabled her to focus on breathing in deeper just like he was doing, the air filling and expanding her lungs as the thoughts slowly stopped hammering inside her head and the sound of the air getting in and out of his nose got clearer as the voices got quieter.

Her heart calmed down as the reality of the moment registered into her.

It suddenly felt overwhelming, the way it mattered to him, the way he noticed, the way he understood, the way he tried, the way he believed, the way he hoped.

The care he had, how he knew the right amount of delicacy he had to have with her. For some reason she didn't hate his touch...

How he was trying to help her...

He felt as the fabric over his thighs started to feel humid. Her tears drenching it.

Jinx felt heavy as she thought about how she wished Isha could've met him, how she wished she didn't have to watch her leave, how she didn't want to handle a world without her.

Feeling as if her tears could flood the entire place, she thought how maybe Isha would've liked him...

Ekko didn't try to dry her tears this time; he let them flow, sliding his hands through her face and pushing some strands of her hair back carefully.

Once again, there they were, simple silence as he held her close while she quietly sobbed.

When she finally stopped, Ekko gently wiped away what remained below her eyes.

He was letting go to get a bottle of water for her, but he was interrupted as soon as he turned his head to the backpack, Jinx gripping tightly at his wrists, her eyes down at her own crisscrossed legs.

The boy carefully looked back at her as she dropped her hands, still holding him strongly.

"Don't worry, I'll stay by your side." He smiled worriedly, freeing his left hand to carefully push her bangs back, caressing the side of her face as she closed her eyes to the affection.

He reached to take the backpack to look for the bottle as Jinx didn't let go of his other arm.

Ekko opens and hands her the bottle; only then does she let go of him.

"Are you still hungry?" He asks as she drinks.

Jinx only hums negatively.

"You sure? I brought chocolate..." He tries, hoping that her taste hasn't changed too much for her not to love sweets like she used to.

She looked a tiny bit surprised. Or that was what Ekko thought. He was holding onto every minimally different reaction from her besides the melancholic ones.

"Never say no to dessert." She says extending her hand so he'd give her the chocolate.

"Hope you still enjoy the basics." He jokes as he places a bar of milky chocolate on her hand.

The girl didn't answer, simply opening it and immediately eating an entire line. She offered him a square.

He quickly held back a small grin and shook his head in response as she just shrugged and kept on eating it.

...

Ekko put the bottles and boxes back inside the backpack as he tried to explain what was going on outside and how he needed her help to bring together all of Zaun to fight for their city.

He said that he certainly couldn't do it alone and that he needed her.

He told her she would have everything she needed to repair or build anything she wanted back at their base and that he wanted all and any of her ideas on how they could do this.

He didn't shy away from telling her how intelligent he knew she was and how the jinxers weren't the only ones to look up to her or to trust her potential.

Then the conversation took a turn to Jinx being a hero. She couldn't believe that title even for a millisecond, but she knew Ekko wasn't the only one to believe in it. Someone else she knew all too well also did. Someone who, in so little time, had painted herself all over Jinx's life—lab, style, weapons, mind, and heart—even after she had long given up on being open to anyone else. 

Traces of the hopeful and touching moments they had spent together plastered all over the same couch she had been sitting on, the desk she was now longingly and hurtfully going through, admiring the "stupid" drawings they did together.

And Ekko noticed when she seemed to get lost inside her head, her memories, her regrets.

"What was she like?" His question immediately snapped her back into reality.

"W-what?" Her eyes trailed uncertainly until she met his, far away from her on the other propeller.

"You... Don't have to tell me if you don't want to." He started reluctantly, looking through the little sheet shelter they'd been under when they were on the couch. "But I'd love to know more." He tried.

Jinx felt her hands starting to shake as she remembered the kid.

"She was insufferable..." Jinx turned back to the desk, trying to avoid letting him see how affected she was. The old wooden top still stained with the blue she had used to fulfill the little girl's wish. "Stubborn, impulsive, reckless..." She listed, recalling the way the kid immediately trusted a random stranger, how she impersonated her, ran around the city without a care in the world, not scared to be free. She quite envied her, her freedom, her spirit, her determination. But mostly she felt the hole inside her own soul left by her departure.

"Reminds me of someone." Ekko tried, smiling slightly when she glanced over her shoulder at him.

She huffed an almost unnoticeable laugh before turning back around.

"But for some reason I couldn't seem to be able to get upset or to feel... heavy whenever she was around." She brushed the tips of her fingers over the colorful handprints they had left on the shattered mirror. Jinx traced the outer line of each of the five tiny fingers; she could feel herself on the verge of breaking down again.

She had lost so many people throughout her life; shouldn't she be used to it by now?

Then why did it hurt so much?

Ekko paid attention to how every little corner of the place seemed different. He knew Jinx was different from Powder, but as he had already noticed, most of those weren't only Jinx's doing. He noticed as she stared longingly at the drawings, holding them as if they were a key that would open a portal and bring the kid back.

He knew she was changed; he could clearly tell the kid meant much more to the blue-haired than anyone would ever be able to imagine; she didn't have to say anything else.

"She was the light, Ekko..." Jinx said so low that it was almost a whisper. "My light... My glasses..." Her voice extremely weak, almost inaudible, as she held one of the drawings against her chest.

He cautiously made his way to her as she clutched one of the crayons that was scattered around. Her fingers enveloped it entirely as her long nails sank into her own skin.

The feeling of her nails deepening into her palm wasn't painful enough to match the pure agony weighing her entire body down; she felt herself succumbing to her own mind.

There weren't any voices; there wasn't any throb or thought. She felt such emptiness that she sensed the nothingness engulfing her. The crushing sensation devouring her from inside out. And before she could cease feeling her own body, she felt the warmth of his fingers securely resting on her shoulder.

Everything felt cold—colder than actually possible. Everything but him.

He watched as her eyes came back to life. 

He didn't risk a word; he didn't want to make her situation worse. He could tell too much made her overwhelmed, and when she was already triggered, anything was too much. He even worried that touching her would make her break down, so he didn't try to hold her, even though he deeply wished he could.

He wished he could hold her and not have to let go; he regretted badly not being able to protect her before. He wished he could push away all her pain, all her suffering, and shield her from the world in his arms. He knew that beneath the sarcastic and "hostile" demeanor was simply a fragile girl, striving to survive and not to get hurt again.

He blamed himself for not being able to save her before, to prevent this from happening, to prevent all this suffering she was forced to go through.

As the girl closed back her eyes, more grounded, he noticed that blood dropped from her palm to the floor.

He quickly reached over to hold her hand, taking away the crayon now stained with her blood.

He looked around searching for something to stop the flowing blood; it wasn't much, but it worried him nonetheless.

"Don't worry about it, boy savior. It's not a big deal." She said as if reading his mind.

Ekko gave up on searching, taking his scarf off and tearing two pieces off of it with his teeth.

He finally placed her hand back on top of the desk as he reached for a water bottle in his backpack.

He held her hand gently again, slowly pouring some water onto her palm, wiping the blood away with one of the torn pieces of his scarf.

Jinx watched as he didn't hesitate a second to tear apart and dirty his own scarf just to take care of her.

Her mind couldn't make sense of it, of why he cared so much, why he worried about her.

"I know you cared about her." He started softly, drying the surroundings of the wounds on her skin. His voice took her away from her thoughts; she didn't know why or how he was able to do it, how his voice soothed her mind so easily.

"'Cared' is a hell of an understatement..." She didn't mean to be rude to him; she hoped he knew that. But "care" wasn't even near enough to describe what she felt for that "dumb" child...

"I..." He understood the feeling; he wanted her to tell him what she felt, why she felt it, and how much it mattered to her. He wished she would open up to him. But life isn't that simple, nor is their relationship. "Sorry..."

He knew it wasn't going to be easy to get to her, he knew, but he still worried.

"Don't. It's fine..." She said, watching as he gently wrapped her hand with the piece of his scarf. "I know what you meant; it's just..." His hands felt feathery, and she couldn't understand how they could be firm and strong while being the most gentle she had felt aside from the kid's. "She was... Everything." It slipped naturally from her lips; it was the most honest truth she had in her. 

"I saw..." Jinx didn't know how to explain it, how she felt it, how the kid was able to heal something inside of her by putting a band-aid on a massive crack that had been inside her for her entire life. How just the light in Isha's eyes made Jinx feel loved like never before.

Ekko parted his lips, doubting if he should or shouldn't finish it.

"Powder... In her eyes." He risked.

Oh... How well did he know what it felt like.

What it felt like to look for her in someone else's eyes, or in her own. Seeing her shine through in small moments that he held onto the hardest that he could. The glow of her eyes was engraved in his brain since that night on the bridge.

Yet, he caught himself looking through other Powder's eyes for that hint of Jinx's sparkle.

"Yeah..." She said, her mind uncertain about what to think given his accurate and quick response. It made sense for him to know; it did, but she didn't know how.

He finished wrapping, tying a careful knot on her wrist, and gently caressing her hand with the excuse to make sure there were no open spaces on the improvised bandages.

Her mind swirled around, lost as they stared into each other's eyes with the unsettling feeling she got from his gaze; she felt, she knew, that he could see right through her, through her burdened, scarred, thick, and—supposedly—unbreakable walls.

The feeling, the fact that she felt—just as real as the soft touch of his hands holding hers—that he understood her, he saw her, he somehow was able to hear the desperate cry for help that never left her mouth, even if she felt like she would scream at any given time.

And as if actually reading her thoughts out loud...

"You don't have to keep it in." His tone was serious, but the warmth radiating from his voice also pretty clear. "No one can hear you here anyway, right?" He proposed, nothing louder than a gentle whisper, as if it was a shared secret.

Her eyes slightly widened, her heart clenching.

Everything that was burdening back inside her mind, coming crashing like a storm.

He didn't want to, but as she stepped away, he let go of her hands. The blue-haired turned away to the darkness that enveloped both of them.

She pressed her eyes tightly shut, no tears faltering, but it felt as if she pressed any harder and her eyes would bleed. She embraced herself, a cold, shivering feeling drilling throughout her body coming from inside her own spine.

Jinx felt the urge, the lump in her throat; the pain stung; it boiled inside her; it was acidic, heavy. It consumed her, blocking the air from getting out, stopping anything from coming in. Feeling like if she let it, it would crush and burn her from the inside out.

She finally let the feeling like boiling lava stir up to her throat, an agonizing, high-pitched shout drowning down to a faltering, cracky, and heavy cry. 

Her throat burned; the air wasn't enough; her voice wasn't enough; her own vocal chords too weak to express the claw that deteriorated her heart.

She wanted everything to go away, she wanted to scream her insides out, she wanted everything to be pulled away from her.

The grip of her own arms tightening around her body, as if she squeezed hard enough, the pain would finally blow away.

Her feet getting colder, her legs shaking, her lungs emptying as she felt like her ribs were about to break, she wished they would, she wished her heart would jump off, would come out of her mouth alongside the huge heaviness of the agony and torment tightly wrapped around it.

Her mouth completely dried out, the air nowhere to be found as she collapsed on her knees, the last bits of sound slipping through her chapped, quivering lips.

Ekko carefully crouched beside her, the echoing pain radiating from her crawling under his skin, heavying him as if it was his own; it hurt, it suffocated, and it ached on him as he dropped to his knees. It was beyond empathy, even beyond the guilt from giving up on her; it was more, way more, a feeling he couldn't find any fitting words to describe or understand at the moment.

He wanted to hold her, to embrace her, to comfort her, to shield her from the world, to let the pain drown in the vast emptiness of the fissures beneath them, and to make sure it could never ever reach her again. 

And he didn't hesitate a second when he noticed her body shivering, no sound falling from her mouth—even if he could tell that not everything that she had buried deep inside herself had been let out—and she tilting to the side, to prevent her fall with his body. He didn't touch her; she just tightened the hug on herself, her strength focused there as his body kept her in place.

As soon as she realized he was there, she instinctively snuggled closer, recoiling to herself yet burying her face in his chest.

She didn't cry, not a single tear; she only whimpered against the softness of his shirt, not even a breath coming out of her mouth. It was as if her body, her vocal cords, were simply reacting to the pain inside her.

It shattered him, every muffled whine, the way he could feel her jaw trembling against him.

He reached to hug her; he stopped himself in hesitancy before another tiny, helpless, shaky sound vibrated through his skin, clearing any uncertainty from his mind. The boy calmly and gently wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him.

Jinx almost crumbled under his touch, unfolding her arms and legs.

There was no hug back; she only rested her hands on his chest, her face between them, letting out a type of sob—it sounded like she was grasping for air, making Ekko drop his face to the top of her head, his breath hitting her hair.

He felt her heartbeat very subtly getting slower, but the ache in his heart hadn't lessened.

Jinx felt small, fragile, and broken; she felt helpless in his arms.

The feeling of insufficiency coming back to him crushed him, just like it did when he was only a child who didn't know any better, who really couldn't do anything else for her.

But that wasn't the case now; he wasn't that insecure, scared child anymore.

Then why did he feel so burdened? So unfitting, so not enough to help her.

Why did he worry he wasn't going to be able to make her better? To take her pain away?

He couldn't let her down again.

He wasn't going to give up.

He was going to try.

Doesn't matter what it takes...

He wasn't going to let go of her.

...

He gave her some time.

He wished he could've given her more time.

He wished he could give her all the time in the world.

He knew she needed it; he knew that deep down she wanted it too.

He wanted to keep on holding her until the pain would vanish away from her mind, her body... But he couldn't; even if he desperately wanted to, he couldn't. There were bigger things just waiting to strike, and he just couldn't "waste" any time—even if he felt like this would be the best way to use it.

He felt her breathing getting lighter, the tightness of her grip on his shirt loosening, and the tenseness of her body fully dissolving, almost as if she really melted in his arms.

He wondered if she fell asleep, and if she did, he didn't have it in him to wake her up. He didn't mind staying like that; he knew that the little forced nap she got a while ago wasn't even near enough.

He knew it wasn't the best idea; he knew that they didn't have time to "waste," but... The world wasn't ending right this minute, was it? 

It wouldn't be that bad to just stay like that for a while, right?

He convinced himself that it wouldn't be that long, that it was fine. But mostly that this was important, that if they depended on her, and if they needed her help, then she should be well rested and at least as okay as possible. 

It was a fact. It was the truth, but it was also true that he wasn't just looking out for Zaun or the Firelights and not only looking out for her specifically; she was his priority, but... He enjoyed it—not the suffering in her eyes, the pain, the worry—but her, being able to be with her, to help her, to make things right.

He was pulled away from ruminating when Jinx shifted uncomfortably in his arms.

She was indeed asleep, not deep asleep—he could tell—but sleeping nonetheless. And the cold floor wasn't the most comfortable of places to do so.

The boy carefully released her from his embrace, slowly reaching for her legs to lift her up.

As soon as he got her off the ground, her fingers wrapped tighter onto his shirt; it made him more aware of everything, of her and of his steps.

Ekko carefully laid Jinx on the couch again, but as he pulled away. The blue-haired's grip on him only strengthened; a complaining groan left the growing pout on her lips, and Ekko didn't fight it. He stayed still, not knowing what he should do.

But the doubt didn't last much longer as Jinx began to wake up, starting to let go of him.

Ekko froze for a second as everything slowed down just enough for him to watch the girl flicker her eyes open. He quickly straightened up, trying to shove away whatever selfish thoughts were trying to get into his mind.

"Feel any better?" He asks, scratching the back of his neck, nervous for a reason he couldn't quite place.

"As much as possible, I guess." Jinx droopily sat up, rubbing her face to wake up.

"You really need to get some sleep..." He worries, taking off the jacket he had recently put back on as he notices Jinx slightly shivering.

"Yeah, no shit." She shifted, sitting properly on the couch, still not fully awake. "Stillwater isn't really the most welcoming or comfortable place to spend... the nights." Her words hit him.

This wasn't any new information for him, but it made him feel for her nonetheless. 

He had caught himself wishing for her to be trapped there after the years of her torment in Zaun, but he never meant it; he was never able to hate her, and now seeing her truly like that, spending not even that long there, it hurt him more than he was even able to process.

She meant too much to him. More than he would care to admit.

"And even if I wanted to, I don't think I could..." Her voice was low, as if she was talking to herself. Her eyes down at her feet. 

He felt that she meant, like, she didn't allow herself to sleep, that she shouldn't, that she wasn't able to.

He cautiously got closer to her, sliding his jacket around her.

It was warm; it felt cozy and comfortable, almost as calming as his hug.

Almost as if it had been recharged with his care and warmth before he gave it back to her, was what she thought.

"Please come to the base..." He tried once more. "It's going to be fine, I swear." He caressed her arms, her attention turning to his hands on the jacket surrounding her.

"How can it be fine, Ekko?" Her voice was sharper. "I know you're only trying to help, but you know better than me that it ain't that simple." She brushed his hand off her arm, crossing hers under her chest and sinking into the couch. 

"I've hurt a lot of them; I've taken a lot of people from them, I..." The sharpness faltered as her voice cracked. "I've done so much... shit to them, to you." She pulled her legs up, embracing them and recoiling in a ball of what Ekko could only assume was shame, guilt, or even regret.

"I don't get how you're still so... nice to me... How or why do you care." She sounded shaky, and he knew he wouldn't be able to handle seeing her cry again. "I don't know how you can do it..."

She buried her face in her arms; he couldn't tell if she was crying or not. 

"I don't get you, but I know they won't be as forgiving as you. I know I wouldn't if someone who already took so much from me just came barging into my home..." She looked up at him, the helpless and hopeless expression on her face making his heart clench.

"I'm not." He said simply.

She stared at him, confused, as he sat down beside her.

"I'm not as forgiving as you think; it's not as easy..." He started. "Yes, you've done a lot of harm. You hurt a lotta people." The flashes of memory came crashing into his mind; it wasn't easy; it was conflicting, the most conflicting decisions he had ever had to take. "And I've tried hating you, blaming you for all of it..."

She wasn't looking at him anymore, staring aimlessly at the path across from them filled with doodles made by Isha.

"But I just... I was never able to do it. I blamed myself. I..." He started fidgeting with his fingers; it wasn't easy admitting all of this, how much it hurt. "I thought that if I had tried a little harder, if I had gone after you even before all that went down, that maybe... maybe I could've prevented it all."

"Don't bother, little man. Putting the blame all on yourself... It's gonna eat you alive. Trust me." She tried. "Besides... I don't think there was anything you could've done." He could tell she was just as lost in the memories as he was.

"You—do you think there was any chance you would've ever... accepted going back with me if I had tried harder back then?" The hope in his tone gave Jinx a strange feeling in the back of her heart; it ached.

"I... I don't know, Ekko..." It caught her by surprise; she knew she missed him back then, and even now, though she never processed it well enough. 

But she never thought about it before, about giving it all up and giving him a chance.

"I can't say for sure that I wouldn't..." She glanced over at him. "But I'm not sure that I... would, or that I even thought about it." She watched as his expression turned into something she couldn't quite sort out.

"But hey, if it's any consolation..." She looked away for a second before nudging him, still in her little curled-up state. "I missed you." It clung in the air between them.

It made something shift, as if something had clicked, but neither could understand what that was yet.

He let his lips curl into a tiny smile, one that made Jinx feel immediately lighter.

"I missed you too." It was sweet, sweeter than she could handle right now.

"Yeah, yeah. But I still can't go back with you." She says apprehensively.

"Already said I'm not letting you go again." He was serious. Too serious for her liking, it made her feel... Strange. "I talked to Scar before coming after you; he already knows my plan, and I talked to other firelights about it before leaving. Of course not everyone is exactly thrilled about it, but they will deal with it, and in some way..." He scooted closer. "Maybe you can try to make it up to them, show them you regret what you did." Ekko reached to place his hand on top of hers, which rested on her knee, but stopped himself.

Jinx only watched as he seemed to fight internally with himself. 

She knew he was only trying to help, and he was right; she did regret it. She didn't enjoy doing any of that anymore; she couldn't tell if she ever did or if she was just too lost to ever realize what she had become, all that she had done.

"I'm not the only one who had the impression that what you were doing was just Silco's orders." Jinx flinched at the mention of his name.

It had been too long since she had last heard it.

She knew; she knew what she saw in the cell was just her mind playing tricks with her, but she wished, for a tiny little second, that it wasn't, that she wasn't alone, that she hadn't done all of that.

But she knew... She had understood how he felt, how Vander felt, maybe even how... her mother felt.

Ever since Isha dropped into her life, too much changed. And she wondered if she had been like that for Silco...

She wondered if Ekko would understand that even if he was bad, Silco was everything she had before...

But now it wasn't the time; now he wouldn't.

"How did you do it, Ekko?" She wondered out loud, looking away.

It had been a huge question hanging between them ever since Jinx first heard about the Firelights, about Ekko's whereabouts.

She only learned about his little... Society after she had already finished off some of whom she later wondered if they were Ekko's new friends.

They hadn't exchanged any words since the moment he gave up on her; she spent little to no time wondering if he was the one behind any of those masks; it was too quick, too short, because too much happened for her to find time to dwell on it.

So she had no idea how; she couldn't understand how he was able to do it, how he found the strength to build up hope and fight, instead of succumbing to the pain like she did...

He only raised a brow, waiting for her to elaborate on the question.

"You..." You made an amazing life; you built something good. You worked it out... How didn't you crumble? Was what she wondered.

Can I? Do you really believe that I'm capable? That I can work this out? That I can be fixed? Were the questions that started to tangle up inside her mind.

I wish I were more like you. I wish I had the strength. I envy you, maybe even look up to you... was what she wished she could say, what she wished she had the courage to tell him, but that she would never admit or allow her mouth to let out.

"How did you move on?..." She knew it hadn't been easy; she imagined it mustn't have been. She knew she had been a huge obstacle in his path to having a better life, and she... Regretted it.

"How did you fill the void?" She wondered, her voice weak.

He slightly huffed, trying to restrain himself.

Guess I did a great job of covering it all up. The bittersweet thought came to his mind.

It's obvious that she would think that; she would think that he has everything figured out, everything under control. After all, he had built that community; he did it on his own; he had found a new family; he had settled down to some sort; he was supposed to feel better, wasn't he?

But he didn't. The hole, the pain, the vastness of the weight that heavied his heart was never gone, even if he fought his hardest to never let it show.

"I didn't." It was hard, hard to be so vulnerable with someone who had already broken his heart and trust in the past. But he knew it hadn't been her choice to do so; maybe she didn't even realize she did it. "You never fill it." He lets out honestly.

"If you couldn't, how could I?" She whispers, looking away, almost ashamed to have hoped even if just for a second.

"We're not that different, you know?" He starts, immediately stopping her mind from spiraling around. "We've only been trying to find a way, something—or someone—to occupy our minds and to lessen the pain, a way to shield that part of us that we think is too broken to be fixed, that has to be kept away not to be hurt again or to hurt anyone else who gets close enough to see a glimpse of it." The honesty of his every word was palpable, as was the weight in them.

The sense of relatability making her stomach twist, the realization of his understanding of the feeling she never found the words for pinching her heart.

It was stupid.

It truly was.

There was no way someone like him would ever be able to understand how someone like her felt.

But maybe—just maybe—he could. 

And she could tell that for some reason, he genuinely wanted to show her that he wanted to understand.

Maybe he wasn't the only one.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt to give it a chance.

Maybe, just maybe, it could work.

Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't hurt to give him a chance.

"I... I get it... But we're not the same, Ekko—" 

Her voice was stern; he could tell she didn't want to let her walls down just yet, but he knew it had worked. He had learned how to read the unspoken words hidden behind the movement of her hands, the speed with which she blinked, the wandering of her gaze, and the forced spike of her tone. Before, it was to be prepared for her—for her attacks, to elaborate a plan for dealing with her. Only now, this same attention to detail and this same focus on her mannerisms, has changed its purpose.

"But we're not opposites either." He cut her off, stopping any overthinking she was about to drag herself into. "We're on the same side... I'm on your side, Jinx." He reached for her hand in a comforting way, a grounding way. An attempt to reassure her and to make sure she understood that he wasn't going to leave without her, that he truly wasn't going anywhere.

The word rang inside her mind.

Sure, it was only her name.

Everyone has called her like that for ages now.

She hated when anyone said otherwise.

Even he had said it earlier...

But this was different, the way he said it, the sound of it coming from his mouth...

He said it before, he did, she remembered... But now she was truly seeing him like he saw her... She took in the way he said it, the way he made it sound.

For some reason it didn't sound like it had ever been a negative word. There was no angry, remorseful, hostile, sarcastic, disappointed, or even any hurt undertone to it.

He simply said it.

For the first time she felt like there was something else underneath it, something completely different, entirely new to it. She couldn't understand what it was, why it was there, or what it meant, but she was sure that it was there, and just that fact by itself made a hint of warmth bloom inside of her, like a ray of sunshine shone on top of her for the first time.

He wasn't there only for Powder anymore; he was making sure she knew that.

He was there for her, whoever she was. And he was willing to let her be who she was able to be. He was willing to let her give herself a chance and wait for her because she could see in his eyes, hear in his voice that he had already given her a chance himself; he had already given her a new page to write herself for him; he was open to reading anything he could and helping complete what she couldn't see yet.

"I don't know if... if I can do what you need me to do." The blue-haired worried, her brows furrowing as she stared at the touch of his hand on hers.

The boy noticed her fixed gaze at their hands touching, but he didn't back away; he didn't want to. He wanted to make sure she knew that it didn't matter how insecure, doubtful, scared, or tired she was; he was going to be there to support her into and out of the darkness and the chaos of her own mind. "You're not going to do it alone." He whispered, his voice warm and steady, spelling out everything he tried to convey with the hold he had in her hand.

It was almost unbearable to her; it almost felt like too much; it was too... new. But the familiarity of him, his voice, his touch, and the predictability of him in itself made everything feel less overwhelming.

She turned to him, her whole countenance much more open than before, her whole posture talking more than anything she was able to say right now.

"I'm not asking anything other than yourself from you. I know that what I need, what we need... what you need... Is still in here." He says, softly placing the pads of his fingers on her chest, where her heart was supposed to be.

Where her supposed heart, her supposed lost self, pulsed intensely at his words.

She could feel there was something still in there, something that even if she couldn't reach it, he was able to see; he was able to make it want to come out.

"And you don't have to rush it out; I only want you to allow it to just be." She stares into those dark orbs of his; they were always so simple, so transparent, always easily spilling it all.

Jinx sighed, lowering her head and trying to let it all sink in.

"Fine..." She took her hand away from Ekko's, turning away from him.

"What?" It slipped, coming out more surprised than he intended.

"I'll go with you." She repeated, faked annoyance in her tone.

A huge weight flew off his shoulders immediately as the acceptance of her words sank in, and the girl got up, his jacket falling from her shoulders as she started looking for something.

He didn't try to ask again, almost scared that if he did, she'd change her mind, so he settled for taking his things and waiting, watching as she gathered scattered pieces of metal, gun barrels, gadgets, and a metal shark head.

She looked like she wanted to take everything around her with them to the base, so he rushed closer to her to reassure her.

"We'll come back; you don't have to take everything now." He placed his backpack on her desk next to everything she had gathered.

"'Course we will. This is just what I'll need for now." Jinx said. 

There was a lightness to her tone but nothing much, at least not for anyone who wasn't Ekko, because for him, this attempt at casual conversation was everything he needed to finally let go of the anxiety holding him back—at least for now.

He helped her pack the rest of her things and started walking towards where he had left his hoverboard. Before noticing that Jinx was just standing there staring at something.

Ekko quickly took his board, preparing himself to speak—even if he wasn't sure what.

"Haven't changed your mind already, have you?" He tried.

And it quite worked, her mind about to wander away from the reality as she caught sight of another one of Isha's drawings; she knew she wasn't going to be okay just like that, but... His voice and his annoying persistency helped; he was able to keep her grounded in some way—not that she'd ever tell him that.

"Not yet." The blue-haired responded, trying to tell him not to worry—it didn't quite work as the particular word stuck into his brain—as she could hear that strange sound of fear in his tone, one that he fought not to let out.

But she was used to catching it since little—Vi wasn't the best at hiding it; he too wasn't the best at his "controlled" panic when she got hurt the first times they trained together—and it seemed as if nothing had changed since back then; he was more composed and serious, but he wasn't the best at hiding his emotions, or maybe she was already used to reading him like an open book for too long.

She was glad; glad that at least this hadn't changed, or at least not enough for it to feel too unfamiliar. Even if there were things behind his intentions, feelings behind his eyes, stories behind his words that she just couldn't understand right now, he was still recognizable, still who she'd long had grown accustomed to.

It was time to let him have this chance, let herself have this chance.

She had to try.