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Sleep has never come easily to Caitlyn. Ever since she was a child she has slept fitfully, often tossing and turning the whole night through. The war and all the ensuing events have not helped her insomnia either, even though things in Piltover have come to a tentative sort of peace since Ambessa was defeated and Caitlyn stepped down from her role as commander, to simply sheriff.
Caitlyn sits up in bed, sighing. Try as she might, it’s obviously futile to hope for more hours of sleep tonight. She looks down to the figure in bed beside her and smiles softly. Vi is fast asleep, snoring slightly, and Caitlyn loves to see her like this. The fact that Vi allows her to see her at her most vulnerable, that they get to fall asleep wrapped in each other's arms every night, is a gift Caitlyn treasures beyond measure.
She idly brushes a lock of Vi’s hair away from her face, taking in the peaceful expression that only seems to fully envelope Vi when she’s asleep. The world has been far too unkind to her, and sometimes Caitlyn’s heart aches with it.
She quietly slips out of bed and pulls on her silk robe, intending to head to the study to review more schematics. Even though it’s been months since Vi so painfully lost her sister and father at the Hexgates, Caitlyn still can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to the story. She hasn’t shared her suspicions with Vi, who has finally come to some sort of stability for once in her life, but she has a hunch that Jinx may not yet be fully gone.
She’s at the door of the bedroom when she hears it, a tiny, almost imperceptible whimper. She turns quickly to see Vi’s face contort in her sleep, anguished. Then her girlfriend starts moaning quietly, writhing in bed and tangling the sheets.
Caitlyn hurries back over to the bed, sitting down next to Vi and running a gentle hand over her bare arm, stroking her soft skin.
“Shh, love,” she murmurs. “Wake up, Violet. You’re having a bad dream.”
It’s not the first nightmare Vi has had, and it’s sure to be far from the last. While Caitlyn struggles to sleep at all, Vi alternates between periods of deep sleep and terrible nightmares that leave her jolting awake wide-eyed and gasping.
“No, no, no, ” Vi moans in her sleep, her face crumpled up in pain, eyes squeezed shut.
Caitlyn shakes her shoulder gently, then cups Vi’s face, smoothing her thumb over her cheek. “Vi!” she says more sharply. “Wake up.”
Shooting up to a sitting position with a sharp intake of breath, Vi’s blue-gray eyes snap open, and the look on her face is so terrified that Caitlyn instinctively wraps her arms around her. Vi tucks her face into her girlfriend’s shoulder, soft sobs already wracking her solid frame.
“Shh,” Caitlyn murmurs, holding Vi close and stroking her hair. “You’re alright, my love. You’re safe Violet, it was just a dream. I’m right here.”
Vi’s hands fist in the silk of Caitlyn’s robe, tugging her even closer, tears flowing freely. Caitlyn doesn’t know how long they stay like that, her gently rocking Vi and speaking to her tenderly, and she doesn’t care. It breaks her heart to see Vi like this, so raw and needy, and she’ll do anything she can to bring her girlfriend whatever small measure of comfort she can.
She buries her nose into the top of Vi’s crimson-rose hair, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head and breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo. The room is lit only by slivers of ghostly moonlight, casting long shadows all around them. Nighttime silence envelopes them, broken only by Vi’s restrained sobs and the quiet words Caitlyn murmurs to soothe her. Caitlyn knows she’s the only person who Vi fully lets down her guard with like this, and she holds Vi close like the strong yet deeply wounded woman Caitlyn knows she is.
After some indeterminable amount of time, Vi’s sobs stutter and eventually stop, replaced with quiet sniffles smothered into Caitlyn’s shoulder.
Caitlyn pulls back so that she can see Vi’s face, her heart clenching when she takes in her girlfriend’s tear-stained cheeks and red, puffy eyes. She wipes away a few of Vi’s tears with her thumb, then presses a barely-there kiss to her lips.
“Are you okay, Violet?” she asks gently.
Vi nods, inhaling shakily and brushing a hand roughly across her eyes. “Fuck. Sorry, Cait – that was a bad one.”
“It’s quite alright, darling,” Caitlyn kisses her again, and gently tugs Vi down so that they can lie down in bed facing one another. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Vi sighs, her eyes flicking away to stare at some unseen object in the distance. “It was that night, again.”
Caitlyn doesn’t need to ask for further clarification. She knows the night that haunts Vi, both while she sleeps and through many of her waking hours.
“I saw her crying and I just walked away,” Vi continues, voice cracking. “She was calling for me, begging me…if only I had just stayed, things could have been so different – I never should have left her, never should have blamed her –”
“Violet,” Caitlyn interrupts, placing a gentle hand on the other woman’s chest. “You can’t blame yourself, and you can’t change what happened. You had just lost your family – again, no one could have expected you to handle that better. You were only a child, love. ”
“So was Powder,” Violet chokes out, a tear slipping down her cheek. Caitlyn tenderly wipes it away.
“Jinx knew you loved her,” Caitlyn murmurs, tracing a finger down the curve of Vi’s bicep. “She felt it. I felt it. It was undeniable. So take comfort in that, Vi. There’s so much I wish we could change,” Caitlyn swallows hard, her mother’s face swimming before her eyes. “But all we can do is live with what is.”
Vi focuses on her, eyes still brimming with tears. “I love you so much, Cait.”
“As do I,” Caitlyn presses their lips together again and Vi cups her jaw to hold her close, and warmth flares in Caitlyn’s chest.
“At least we have this,” Vi murmurs once they part, running her fingers through Caitlyn’s loose hair.
“At least we have this,” Caitlyn echoes.
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