Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Are you certain he’ll be down here?”

Vi shrugs, playing her torch’s light across the ground at their feet. “My informant was a friend of Vander’s. They don’t usually lie to me.”

Caitlyn frowns, her own torch chasing over crumbling factory walls. Lifeless, just like everything they’ve searched for the past few hours.

She’s rarely been this deep into Zaun, but whenever a tip comes in about one of Silco’s former underlings causing trouble, she and Vi are the ones to take it. For one, despite Caitlyn’s best efforts over the past month, few of her enforcers really care about what happens in Zaun, and even fewer have the experience to actually chase anyone down here.

For another, despite all the long hours they’ve spent talking about Vi’s past and trying to help her accept it, she’s still determined to be the one who deals with any of Silco’s lingering fallout.

And where Vi goes, Caitlyn goes. Even when that means pulling on a filthy set of mining clothes to search through abandoned tunnels which might house anything from transients to major drug operations.

Their presence in this dark and dingy alley, though, seems unnoticed by any but the stones. A few of which tumble from a crumbling wall as their footsteps—heavy, thanks to the ancient mining gauntlets on Vi’s hands—shake them loose. Dust billows from the disintegrating mortar, and Vi muffles a cough in a dirty sleeve. “Don’t think anyone’s been this way for a while,” she says, her voice hoarser than usual. To be fair, it’s been months since she’s come down into these parts of Zaun. No doubt her lungs are no longer used to being coated in grime, especially as breathing apparati are a standard part of enforcer gear. “We should head down the left alley, check out that warehouse that’s not falling apart as bad.”

“Lead the way,” Caitlyn murmurs, readjusting the shapeless hat which hides both her distinctive hair and her eyepatch. Likely a futile gesture, as even with her hood up, Vi is known to most Zaunites—and known to spend all her time with Caitlyn. Still worth the effort. A moment’s hesitation from an attacker is all the opening either woman needs to take down a potential opponent.

Vi turns toward the alley, but one foot snags on the newly-fallen rocks and she almost falls, catching herself against the ruined building. “Shit. Sorry,” she whispers as Caitlyn’s hands come up to steady her. “Not used to these fists. My old ones balanced way better.”

Jayce’s gauntlets, which were retrieved more than a month ago from the base of the Hexgate, and still haven’t been repaired. Caitlyn isn’t sure they ever will be, with their creator’s re-disappearance and with the future of Hextech itself uncertain. She grimaces at the reminder, but Vi is already apologizing. “Fuck. Sorry. I didn’t—”

“It’s all right,” Caitlyn says. It isn’t, really, but they both lost so much in the battle for Piltover, and gods know Caitlyn has said the wrong thing by accident more than once since then. “We’re on a mission. Let’s keep going.”

Vi nods and starts forward again, her steps less sure now. Caitlyn frowns, following a half-step behind. Vi’s not one to let a little thing like ten or twenty extra pounds of metal throw her off balance. Vi can sprint with a fully-armoured enforcer on her shoulders. The mining gauntlets should be no trouble whatsoever. Is she fatigued from their long search? Are her lingering injuries from the invasion still paining her?

Caitlyn peers closer at Vi in the dim underground lighting, but it’s too dark for her to make out Vi’s features, and Caitlyn doesn’t think suddenly shining a torch in Vi’s face would go over well.

Slowing to a stop, Caitlyn opens her mouth to say she needs a break—suggesting Vi should rest isn’t likely to be taken well, either—but Vi speaks up first.

“Just up here,” she whispers, beckoning Caitlyn toward a rusted metal door. Vi shines her light on the latch, revealing fresh scratches in the paint. A sign of life, at long last. “Be ready.”

Caitlyn nods, flipping out her rifle from its holster under her tattered cloak, and Vi kicks the door open.

We could have cut the lock, Caitlyn thinks fondly, but Vi’s tactic has its own merits. A shout sounds from within the building, followed by the scuffle of several someones scrambling to their feet and trying to run through the darkness.

Vi runs six miles before breakfast. Silco’s man doesn’t have a chance.

The struggle is brief, and Caitlyn’s backup unneeded. Moments later, they’re finally marching a handcuffed wannabe Chem-Baron from his hiding spot. His guards lie groaning on the factory floor, but Caitlyn’s long since learned from Vi that minor criminals like them aren’t worth taking in. They’ll get their lumps from fellow Zaunites and find other jobs, more or less legal than this one. Stillwater, despite the reforms Caitlyn has begun drafting, is far too harsh a punishment for ‘working for the wrong man’.

They hand their prisoner off at an enforcer checkpoint not far from the old factory district and continue back into the parts of Zaun which Caitlyn is more familiar with. Vi’s haunts, she fondly calls them in her own mind. Under Vi’s patient tutelage, Caitlyn is beginning to learn the language of signs and symbols marking various questionably-legal businesses, and has even patronized a few.

She resolutely turns her gaze away from a building she identifies at once as a hidden brothel, the neon lights above hopefully washing the blush from her cheeks, and studies her partner instead.

No matter how Vi disguises herself, she usually moves through these streets like a shark, causing lesser fish to part around her. She’s doing well today, though. Her head is downturned, as befits her mining clothing, her steps dragging a little against the grimy stone.

And then she stumbles into a wall, her hood falling back. Her features are thrown into stark relief by the neon glow of a shop’s sign overhead, and Caitlyn’s heart clenches.

Vi’s attitude, her stride, might not be deliberate affectations.

Her skin is paler than usual. Nearly as pale as the times she’d been bleeding out in Caitlyn’s arms, which is a scenario she wishes she was far less familiar with. Sweat beads on Vi’s forehead, and the neon doesn’t hide the flush on her cheeks, an angry and patchy red that obscures her faint freckles. Her bright gray eyes are too bright, shining glassy in the coloured lights.

“Vi?” Caitlyn asks quietly, but Vi moves to readjust her hood as though she hasn’t heard. Stares at the gauntlets covering her fists as though she’s forgotten she was wearing them.

“I’m fine,” Vi says lightly, and starts back down the street, her uncovered hair as bright as the neon signs above.

It’s clear by now, however, that she’s anything but. Just as clear that she’s in no condition to walk all the way to Piltover. Cursing her partner’s stubbornness, Caitlyn tugs Vi’s arm and ducks them both into an alley, checking first to make sure it’s unoccupied.

“Cait?” Vi asks, not meeting Caitlyn’s eyes. Vi’s voice is still hoarse, and Caitlyn curses herself for not questioning it earlier.

She cups Vi’s chin in one hand, and Vi leans into the touch, swaying against the brick wall. Her skin is far too warm, sticky with sweat. “You’re ill,” Caitlyn says. Trying her hardest to keep accusation from her tone.

Vi shakes her head, then winces at the motion. “Nah, I’m just hot, Cupcake,” she rasps. Flashing Caitlyn a smirk that falls flat in the dim light. “You should be used to that by now.”

“This isn’t a laughing matter,” Caitlyn insists. “You’ve got a fever, and it’s affecting your balance. And,” she speaks over Vi’s attempted protests, “it’s clearly getting worse. And quickly.”

Caitlyn sighs, her voice growing softer as her hand shifts to press against Vi’s cheek. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Vi is clearly mustering up another denial, but one look at Caitlyn’s determined worry deflates her. “It’s… not what you do,” she mutters instead.

Caitlyn raises an eyebrow, and Vi elaborates, low and rough. “Here, or… or Stillwater. You don’t let anyone know you’re feeling weak.”

A chill runs down Caitlyn’s spine, though she doesn’t let it show. Gods damn it, every time she thinks she’s grown used to Vi just saying traumatic things like they’re no big deal, Vi hits her with another gut punch. “Well, you’re in a relationship now. The rules have changed, love.” In the short time they’ve been in the alley, Vi has sagged farther against the wall. Her breathing is growing harsher. “You’re… you won’t make it back to Piltover in this state.”

“It’s not that far,” Vi says airily, and pushes herself off the wall. Caitlyn has to grab Vi’s biceps as she starts to topple. “Okay. Maybe… I guess you have a point.”

Caitlyn hisses a curse, and despite her weakness, Vi’s lips quirk into a smile. Just like they always do when Caitlyn uses ‘undercity lingo’. “Take off your gauntlets,” Caitlyn insists, consulting her mental map of the underground maze as Vi complies. “The nearest guard post is blocks away. I don’t know if I can help you get there without being recognized.”

Vi shakes her head, steadying herself against Caitlyn now. The heat of her body, usually a comfort, now a concern. “No need. I got a place. Close.” She slings one arm over Caitlyn’s shoulder, gauntlets dangling from the other hand, and gestures farther down the alley. “Left up ahead, then two streets down. There’ll be skinny metal stairs. Not easy to get up, but I can manage.”

Caitlyn wraps an arm around Vi’s torso and begins to drag them both forward, wondering what den of iniquity Vi is going to take her to this time.

There are no discernible signs or symbols on the worn brick building Vi directs Caitlyn to, though judging by the sharp scent of alcohol and the discarded bottles in the gutter, they’re not far from some manner of bar or pub. The stairs, as Vi warned, are a jagged nightmare of loose railings and weakened metal. Caitlyn ends up bracing Vi from behind with her own body, clutching the handrail, as Vi struggles to lift her feet from step to step. The mining gauntlets, tied together, hang over Caitlyn’s shoulder; the twenty pounds of solid metal make this even more difficult, but Vi is strangely protective of the ugly things.

The stairs lead to a row of identical metal doors, rusted and gleaming dimly in the weak streetlight, nearly a dozen jammed together along a stretch of wall only slightly wider than Caitlyn’s bedroom. Vi points down the row. “Sixth,” she mutters, and Caitlyn snorts. “What? It’s a classic. Needed something I could remember no matter how out of it I was.”

The reasoning behind this confusing statement becomes clear once Caitlyn slips the key into the battered lock and swings the door open.

The room is tiny, smaller even than a Stillwater cell, and just as chilly. A barred window on one wall lets in sickly orange light, illuminating the room’s contents. A low, squat coal stove, long cold, nothing but old ash within it now. A toilet, a sink, and a shattered mirror—Caitlyn notes, uneasily, that the shards emanate from a spot the size and shape of a fist. A rough sleeping area, nothing more than several patched-up sofa cushions arranged on a pair of warehouse pallets. A punching bag, hanging from the ceiling in one corner, misshapen from abuse.

And dozens of alcohol bottles. Clustered on the windowsill, behind the toilet. The cloying stench of cheap booze mixes with old sweat and coal smoke, and Caitlyn muffles a cough in her shoulder, her nose wrinkling.

Vi, on the other hand, coughs openly. And hard. The exertion up the stairs can’t have been good for her, and Caitlyn can’t keep her from collapsing onto the ‘bed’, releasing a cloud of dust that only makes her coughing worse.

“Breathe, Vi,” Caitlyn says desperately, closing the door behind her and dropping the gauntlets. She hesitates, then snatches a small bottle that looks marginally cleaner than the others. Rinses it and fills it with tepid water from the sink. Holds it in front of Vi, and rubs her back, soothing, as her body shakes beneath Caitlyn’s fingers.

Vi catches her breath at last, though it takes long enough that Caitlyn—holding her own breath without truly noticing—is growing dizzy. Drains the proffered bottle in one long swallow and leans back against the wall with a heavy sigh, seemingly unfazed by the state of the room.

“Never wanted you to see this place,” she mutters, her eyes glinting in the light from the window.

Caitlyn nudges one of the taller bottles, glancing helplessly at her own reflection in its curved side, then in the splintered mirror. “Are all these… yours?”

“Yeah,” Vi sighs, flopping back onto the horrendous bed. The cushions shift under her weight, separating, leaving one arm to rest on the pallet below.

Caitlyn compulsively begins to count the bottles, then forces herself to stop. The implications are clear, and damning, and churn her stomach even worse than the smell does.

Before Stillwater, Vi lived in The Last Drop. After Stillwater, Vi lived in Kiramman House….

Until Caitlyn left her in the ductworks.

Chapter Text

Caitlyn leans one hand on the sink, unable to keep herself from cataloguing further details. The oily streaks of black in the sink. The bandages and plasters bunched in the corner beside the bed.

The old rust color of blood smeared on the mattress, on the punching bag, on the shards of the mirror.

“You already apologized, Cupcake,” Vi says from below. Because of course she knows what Caitlyn is thinking. She usually does.

“I didn’t know to apologize for… for this,” Caitlyn says, her mouth dry. Tracing the cracks in the mirror with a trembling finger.

Vi snorts. “Coulda found someplace else to stay. Firelights woulda had me, for one. I made this decision, not you.”

You made this decision because of me, Caitlyn argues silently, but she doesn’t let herself voice the sentiment. Vi’s past isn’t the only thing they’ve discussed at length over the last month. Vi also had some fairly cutting words about Caitlyn shouldering responsibility for things that aren’t hers to shoulder. ‘Take it from someone who can’t stop picking up other people’s burdens. If I’ve gotta rest my muscles, you’ve gotta cut out the self-blame.’

Even though Vi also struggles with blaming herself, far more than she’ll admit, and she still throws herself in front of Caitlyn at the first sign of danger….

But that’s a discussion to be had another day. Right now, Vi needs immediate physical aid.

Caitlyn grabs the bandages from beside Vi’s bed; they may be grubby, but it’s not as though she’s using them to dress a wound. She tears off a length and wets it in the sink, then lays it across Vi’s forehead, and Vi sighs in relief as the lukewarm water touches her overheated skin.

“Afraid I don’t have anyplace good to sit,” she rasps. “Wasn’t really thinking about visitors when I found this place.”

“What were you looking for?” Caitlyn asks, unsure whether she wants to know the answer. She settles down gingerly on a corner of the pallet.

Vi shrugs, peeking out from below the cloth on her forehead. “Mostly just a place close to the… to the bar. Cheap, too. Landlady’s used to not asking questions, she doesn’t look kindly on anyone who breaks in, and she’s got some neighborhood pull. Best I could have really hoped for.”

Caitlyn’s pretty sure ‘close to the bar’ isn’t what Vi was about to say, but now’s not the time to push. “And I’m guessing there’s no convenient corner chemist.”

“Depends on what chemicals you’re looking for,” Vi laughs, then coughs again. Caitlyn refills her bottle with tepid water. “But… no. Enforcer checkpoint’s the only place near here you’re gonna find anything your dad would give me.”

Caitlyn grimaces. She’d been afraid of that. Either Vi will have to rest here until her fever breaks, or Caitlyn will have to leave her alone to find help.

She was alone here for months, and she managed.

But not well, Caitlyn thinks. She still vividly remembers that moment she tackled Vi to the fissure floor. Bruised cheekbone, split lip, smeared eyeshadow half-hiding a faded black eye. She’d lost weight, though it was hard to tell under all the muscle. And the surgery to repair her stomach wound and those from the explosion had revealed far more: cracked ribs, partially healed from at least two separate breaks. Bone-deep bruising on her back. A torn muscle in one arm and evidence she’d dislocated at least one shoulder. And that was just what Caitlyn had managed to read in her father’s reports before he had, gently but firmly, ushered her from the room.

Caitlyn glances out the window, toward the orange light, and thinks she probably knows what kind of establishment this apartment is ‘close to’.

Still, that was before. Back when both Vi and Caitlyn had been spiralling, circling each other as though racing to see who would make it down the drain first: physical punishment or emotional punishment. Caitlyn’s only worry now is that Vi’s fever might worsen. She needs to get out of her head and get going to the checkpoint.

“I’ll be back soon,” she promises, and at Vi’s reassuring nod, Caitlyn slips from the apartment and locks it behind her.

She returns from the guard post a good ten minutes later, frustration lending her stomp through the streets extra credence. Inventory is apparently low on the priority list in such an understaffed area; the checkpoint was out of antipyretics, antitussives, everything except a few piddling antiemetics. She’ll have to continue treating Vi’s fever and cough with her current rudimentary methods.

Speaking of understaffed, the checkpoint held only a single guard tasked with watching all comings and goings to the bathysphere. They’ll have to secure a runner from HQ. Caitlyn’s been instructed, without much confidence, to check back in an hour.

Another hour, or longer, of watching Vi’s condition worsen.

It’s evident by the time she returns that Vi, despite her discomfort, has made some small effort to tidy the place. The bottles are gone from the unusually deep windowsill, one of the flattened cushions taking their place while Vi curls up on the remaining two.

“Hey,” she croaks, cracking an eye open.

“Hey, yourself,” Caitlyn says, crouching to check on Vi. The cloth is already half-dry, and she rewets it with a frown. “We’re going to have to wait for help.”

Vi shrugs. “Not the first time I’ve been sick down here. Always made it before.”

Caitlyn breathes in and counts to ten; reminding Vi that she doesn’t have to tough things out any longer has a less-than-perfect success rate. “That might have reassured me before you told me about how you used to treat serious injuries down here.”

Vi’s laugh is pained. “Hey, we sew people up just the same.”

“Except in Piltover we sterilize our instruments with disinfectant, and to quote you, ‘we either pour some booze on a needle or just stick it in the fire’.” Caitlyn’s imitation of Vi’s best sump-rat accent earns her another laugh, this one more genuine. “And I must still insist that spit is not an adequate antiseptic.”

“It always kept me from going septic,” Vi argues cheerfully, another sip from her water bottle stifling a cough. She pats the windowsill encouragingly. “Here you go. I tidied up for your highborn sensitivities, Sheriff.”

Caitlyn scoffs, settling herself onto the inadequate cushion. She knows she’ll start to ache after a good five minutes of sitting here, but she doesn’t have to tell Vi that.

They sit in silence for a while, Caitlyn peering out the grimy window at the vague blurs of people moving along the street below, Vi’s breathing gone slow like she’s falling asleep. Caitlyn can’t help but worry about the whistle of Vi’s breath—it’s not her normal snore through poorly-healed broken nose. It’s more of a chest-deep whistle, the kind that would have Caitlyn’s father ordering imaging services.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this place,” Vi murmurs, startling Caitlyn.

Caitlyn swallows hard. “You don’t owe me an explanation of where you went after I left you.”

In her mind, she uses harsher words to describe her actions that day—’abandoned you’, ‘betrayed you’, sometimes ‘tore your heart out’ when she’s feeling particularly melancholy—but Vi gets upset about such wording whenever Caitlyn uses it aloud.

Vi shrugs, turning over on her mattress and resting an arm on her forehead, above the bandages. “Still. I hate keeping secrets from you.” Her mouth twists. “I didn’t move in here for the bar.”

“So I gathered,” Caitlyn reassures her. “There are a lot of people heading into that nondescript door, across the street from here. Strange time of day for it, too. I can’t see the symbols from here, but I could probably tell you what they are.”

“Too smart for your own good,” Vi rasps, though she definitely sounds more amused than before. “If it helps, I wasn’t alone the whole time. Loris kept by me for most of it.”

Caitlyn tips her head against the window, soft cap muffling the thunk. A careful breath muffling the most intense edges of relief—and of regret—from her voice. “Most of it?”

“I tried to drive him off,” Vi confesses. “But… but Jinx found me right after that. I never got the chance to really self-destruct. Not even sure if I wanted to. I just….”

She trails off, whether from fever and shortness of breath, or from being unable to truly analyse her own actions, Caitlyn isn’t certain.

“I wanted to self-destruct, too,” Caitlyn murmurs to the window. “There were too many people around me for it to really stick, but goodness knows I wanted to.”

“What a pair,” Vi sighs. “Piltover’s Finest, for sure.”

Caitlyn snorts at the nickname the other enforcers have begun using for the two of them. “To be fair, we do bring in more than twice as many criminals as any other team,” she says. “We just do it with more self-loathing.”

“It’s probably why we’re so effective,” Vi says, a yawn stretching the last word. Caitlyn laughs. “We needed some self-loathing to balance out our incredible skills.”

“That explains more than it doesn’t,” Caitlyn says, shaking her head in amusement. “Get some sleep, love. You’ll heal better if you do.”

Vi huffs. “Trying. You’ve spoiled me. I used to sleep here, no problems, before you came into my life with your nighttime baths and lavender sachets.”

“I’m afraid I’m not sorry,” Caitlyn says, and Vi laughs one more time before curling back up and closing her eyes.

Caitlyn leans against the window for a while longer, watching people filter into—and occasionally get kicked out of—the fight club across the street. The glass vibrates under her head as someone in a neighbouring apartment puts on loud music, something with a thumping bassline only heard from Chemtech devices, likely because Piltover’s elite tend toward flute- and violin-heavy classical compositions.

She’s not sure she’ll ever admit it to Vi, because Vi would probably laugh herself sick, but part of Caitlyn loves being down here, in the noise and the smell and the muck. Zaun seems so much more alive than Piltover, despite its myriad dangers. As though the shortened life expectancy means that people try to pack more actual living into the years they do have.

And sure, it’ll probably be years before it’s safe enough for Piltover’s Sheriff to have a little apartment of her own down here, but for the meantime… maybe she’ll convince Vi to keep paying for this tiny, dank room. After all, it’s good to have a safehouse they can hide out in. Right?

Caitlyn laughs at herself, since she won’t let Vi do it for her, and listens to Vi’s whistling breath, counting down the time until she should return to the guard post.

Chapter Text

“What do you mean, there’s still no word?!”

The enforcer at the checkpoint looks a little frightened to be the one delivering this news to their superior officer, even if said superior is dressed like a sump-rat. “I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you. We’re still waiting on reinforcements, and no word from headquarters on what’s keeping them.”

Caitlyn breathes in, breathes out, holding steady. It isn’t this poor recruit’s fault HQ hasn’t yet responded, and it’s entirely possible they have a legitimate reason for the delay. Tensions in both cities have eased somewhat since the Invasion, but that doesn’t mean crime has gone down. In some places, it’s even increased. Most of it petty, since being hauled off to Stillwater for picking pockets is now off the table. But no amount of diplomacy is going to stop murderers, arsonists, or other dangerous criminals, many of whom are already taking advantage of the chaos.

And, unfortunately, invoking the ‘Vi’s in immediate trouble’ card isn’t likely to yield faster results. Despite all the aid Vi’s given the enforcers over the past year, her birthplace, appearance, and acerbic attitude toward Piltover high society are more than enough to put her on the outs with HQ. And the facts remain that she’s Caitlyn’s deputy, not truly an enforcer. That she’s never undergone official training and isn’t technically on the rolls.

Not that these things are even offered to people from Zaun, of course, but Caitlyn got backlash simply because Vi had no surname to put on her enlistment papers. It’s going to be a while before Caitlyn manages to get any significant changes pushed through, even if any of the Councilors agree to help. With Mel and Jayce gone, the only Councilor with whom Caitlyn has any pull is Sevika, and Caitlyn is fairly certain that any conversation with Sevika that begins with ‘I want to expand the enforcers’ will end with a defenestration at best.

Caitlyn lets herself think, for a bare moment, about her true dream. The one she hasn’t even dared speak to Vi yet, afraid of once again making promises Caitlyn can’t keep. The dream of abolishing the enforcers entirely, replacing them with wardens. People hand-picked for their strength of character, people who will actually help, not just protect Piltover’s interests through any means necessary.

But none of those vast dreams matter now, when all she needs is any idiot in a uniform to stop by a chemist and pick up a few tablets, and yet she can’t even have that.

Neither can the rest of Zaun. What makes you so special?

“I’ll return in an hour, then,” Caitlyn says at last, and the clearly relieved enforcer escorts her from the checkpoint’s detainment shack, leaving Caitlyn to trek back empty-handed again.

Damn it all, Caitlyn needs more contacts down here. If she knew who was safe to approach, she could at least get word to her father. But everyone Vi’s introduced Caitlyn to lives up in the Lanes, far more central than this shabby neighbourhood trapped between commercial and industry districts.

Which is probably one reason why Vi chose this place, because she didn’t want to be recognized. But curse it, if that isn’t blowing up in her face now.

Caitlyn shivers faintly as she walks down the streets. Night and day don’t have as much meaning down here, but there’s still a chill to the air that wasn’t there earlier. She didn’t think it would be a problem before, but if they have to stay much longer… well, Vi doesn’t have anything resembling blankets, and Caitlyn doesn’t know where to purchase coal. Nor does she have funds on her. And though she’s long since proven that she’s willing to trade her rifle for Vi’s life, she doesn’t look forward to trading it just for heat.

One more hour. Just another hour, and you’ll have the medicines, and Vi will stabilise, and you can bring her home.

Gods, Caitlyn can’t even believe her own thoughts.

She raps softly on the door before unlocking it, but Vi remains just the way Caitlyn left her. The bottle of water beside the bed untouched, the damp compress folded neatly on her forehead. Caitlyn crouches beside her, testing the heat of Vi’s cheeks and grimacing at the result. Maybe it won’t matter that she doesn’t have a way to heat the apartment, because Vi’s fever shows no signs of breaking. In fact, though Caitlyn tries to tell herself it’s just because her hands are chilly from the trek, she’s afraid Vi’s temperature has gone up nearly a full degree.

Vi stirs at Caitlyn’s touch. “Shhh,” Caitlyn soothes, stroking her fingers over Vi’s heated skin. “Rest more, love.”

Instead, Vi cracks an eye open. Unfocused, shining gray. “Used to dream about this,” she rasps.

Caitlyn frowns. “About what?”

Vi waves a vague hand. “You. Here.” She sighs, staring past Caitlyn, toward the low stove. “Every day, I’d wake up, and you’d be here.”

Caitlyn’s heart clenches, and she bites her lip to still the sudden prickle of tears. Vi’s told her before about how Jinx’s hallucinations were hereditary, though she usually refrains from details.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t,” Caitlyn says quietly. Uselessly.

Vi shakes her head. “Didn’t want you to see me like that. But you did anyway. Still helped.”

A scrambled moment of confusion, and Caitlyn realizes Vi means their meeting outside Viktor’s commune. She continues her ministrations, smoothing sweat-damp hair behind Vi’s ear. “Nothing could have stopped me.”

Vi hums, and a smile twitches at the corners of chapped lips. “Anyway. Was a nice dream. ‘S even better you’re really here.” A soft snort of laughter. “Even in that hat.”

And before Caitlyn can possibly come up with a response to that, Vi’s eyes close again.

Caitlyn’s next trip to the checkpoint brings answers, but nothing further. A riot at the docks—protesters demanding the dismantling of the Hexgates clashing with Hextech enthusiasts—has taken all of the possible backup from such remote places as Zaunian outposts. It’s only now that the chaos has calmed enough for HQ to send a runner, and though Caitlyn’s message was delivered, she doesn’t dare leave Vi alone for the time it will take for the runner to return with supplies. Still, hope buoys her as she hurries back to Vi.

Caitlyn is gasping for breath by the time she makes her way up the rickety stairs, and she reluctantly admits to herself that she should also be resting. It won’t do for Caitlyn to make herself ill caring for Vi. She’d never let Caitlyn hear the end of it.

She knocks on the door, then cracks it open. “Vi?”

No answer, again. Good, because Vi needs the rest. Bad, because Caitlyn doesn’t know how high the fever might have climbed in her absence.

She steps into the room, accidentally kicking the abandoned mining gauntlets as she makes her way through the murky dimness. The clatter of metal on concrete makes her wince, and to her chagrin, Vi’s eyes snap open.

She stares, unfocused, across the room—then reaches out a hand, gentle and trembling, to cup against the empty air before her.

As her fingers meet no resistance, Vi slumps further into the cushions, breathing out a ragged sob whose rough edges tear at Caitlyn’s bruised heart.

She’s hallucinating me again.

How can you possibly apologize for something this cruel? For leaving this incredible woman, who loves so fiercely that she’ll never give it up, no matter what the people she loves become? Jinx, Vander, Caitlyn—all of them have hurt her. All of them left her, and became monsters while they were gone. Does Caitlyn truly deserve credit for being the one who stayed in the end, when she wasn’t even the first to return? When she wasn’t the one who tracked Vi to this wretched little room and pulled her, blinking, back into the sunlight?

You’re here now. Better make it count.

Caitlyn rushes to Vi’s side, though she doesn’t make it there before Vi’s eyes close again. Caitlyn rests a hand on Vi’s shoulder. “It’s all right, love. I’m here. Don’t worry.”

Vi’s eyes flutter, but remain closed. “I miss you,” she rasps.

Caitlyn could weep. “I know,” she whispers, stroking her thumb across the gears inked into Vi’s neck. Checking her temperature with the other hand and wincing at what she finds. “But it’s all right. I’m here now.”

A sigh, spilling soft into the air between them. “A nice dream,” Vi murmurs again, and her breathing settles back into the rhythm of sleep.

Caitlyn bites her lip, wanting nothing more than to join Vi on her terrible little pallet, but she still needs help. More torn bandages join the refreshed cloth on Vi’s forehead, letting cool water sink into the pulse points on her throat and wrists. She twitches in her sleep, lips turned down and brows drawn in, though her features smooth as Caitlyn settles back down and combs her fingers through Vi’s sweat-damp hair.

“I’m sorry for leaving you,” Caitlyn whispers, voicing the thoughts that Vi won’t listen to when she’s awake. “I don’t think you understand how deeply I regret it. And I worry about that for you. Do you still feel as though you deserved it? Or is that simply what you expect of the people who love you?”

And why wouldn’t she? Vi has lost everyone she’s ever loved. Her mother, two fathers, two brothers, a sister. Found and lost her father and sister again. Friends and comrades, familiar faces from Zaun, all torn from her in the invasion. As far as Caitlyn knows, Ekko and Sevika are the only ones left from the old days. One throwing his entire self into rebuilding the city to hide his own grief, the other become a grudging acquaintance on the best of days.

Vi found and lost Caitlyn, and though she found her again, Caitlyn can’t blame Vi if somewhere deep down, she expects Caitlyn to one day vanish from her life for good.

So… perhaps this is the only way Caitlyn can truly apologize. By simply being there for Vi, every day of her life, until someday Vi can believe she’s worth staying around for.

Caitlyn leans forward and presses a kiss to Vi’s fever-warm cheek. “I promise,” she whispers, and though the words taste sour on her lips—didn’t you promise her once before, and broke that promise right away—she’s never meant anything more in her life, “I promise you, Vi, I will never leave you again.”

She leans against Vi’s bed, and continues stroking Vi’s hair, and counts down the minutes until she can return to the checkpoint.

Caitlyn slips from Vi’s apartment as silently as possible. Closing the door with agonizing slowness, creeping down the stairs. Anything to keep Vi from waking again to find herself alone.

Despite the late hour, Zaun remains bright and lively. Topside, most everyone has bedded down by now, as though the city fears the dark of night. Streetlamps not enough to illuminate the world sufficiently to calm oversensitive noble nerves. But here, Caitlyn’s hurried pace is far from remarkable. No matter the time of night, the city remains alive.

She lets herself dream for a moment, as she rushes toward the guard post. What life might be like if Piltover can be convinced to let Zaun in, to allow some of this noise and colour to transform Caitlyn’s home. If some of Piltover’s vast wealth can be allowed to bleed into Zaun, making food and medicine more readily available to the people still struggling down here in the Lanes and fissures.

If Caitlyn can present this to Vi, a physical sign of Caitlyn’s commitment to her promise. Working every day to prove that not only does Vi belong with Caitlyn, but that Vi’s world belongs with Caitlyn’s.

She shakes her head, scoffing at herself. Such a grand and foolish statement. And truly, Caitlyn is altogether the wrong person to bring about any further change, to Zaun or to Piltover.

Vi, though. Vander’s daughter, backed by the Kiramman name and money. It’s a tantalizing dream.

Perhaps, once Vi recovers, Caitlyn will have found the words to present this dream to her.

A nice dream….

She slows as she approaches the checkpoint, joining the short line of Zaunites moving in and out of the city. She’s seen no Piltovians in this line. Afraid of getting mugged, perhaps not without cause. Another thing she hopes to fix, one day at a time, with Vi at her side.

She’s pulled out of line by that same apologetic enforcer after a brief false pat-down, and to her surprise, a new face greets her in the shack. “Good evening, Sheriff,” says the feline Vastaya. “Reinforcements have arrived at last, and I’ve been told to deliver this to you posthaste.”

Caitlyn blinks back weary tears and tucks the chemist’s bag into a hidden pocket in her jacket. “Thank you, truly,” she says, and allows herself to be led from the shack, released back into Zaun by the apologetic enforcer. Stomping as though she was disallowed entry into Piltover, though with every step, her heart feels lighter than it has all day.

She all but flies up the metal steps, hesitating before the door just long enough to catch her breath, then eases the door open.

Vi is sprawled across her cushions, her breathing slightly easier, and Caitlyn’s own breath escapes her in a quiet, grateful sigh. She pushes the door gently closed, sets the bag of medicine on the edge of the sink, and sinks onto Vi’s makeshift mattress.

Caitlyn lies down, ignoring the grime and dust. Until she and Vi are face-to-face, close enough that Caitlyn can count the freckles smattered across Vi’s nose and cheeks.

And, holding her breath, Caitlyn nudges Vi awake.

Vi’s eyes flicker open, out of focus, just as before. And just as before, she raises a trembling hand to Caitlyn’s cheek, warm fingers brushing her skin with infinite tenderness.

Vi’s eyes widen, and she sucks in a breath that makes tears prickle in Caitlyn’s eye as she smiles. Soft and warm, just for Vi.

“I’m no dream, love,” Caitlyn whispers. “Not this time.”

Vi laughs, pressing her too-warm forehead to Caitlyn’s. Tears gathering in her own eyes, spilling over. “Hate to break it to you, Cupcake, but you are definitely a dream come true.”

And as Caitlyn brings Vi the medications, as she settles back onto the bed with the woman she loves… she thinks that maybe, one of these days, she might begin to believe it.

For Vi.