Chapter Text
Chapter 1: (you’ll always be) my favourite ghost
Vi is, to put it mildly, a reckless kid.
Scraped knees, split knuckles, bruises blooming under dirt-streaked skin –half the time, she doesn’t even notice until someone points them out. She climbs too high, jumps too far, runs too fast. If she falls, she gets back up. If she bleeds, she wipes it off. That’s just how it is.
But then one day, something changes.
She is halfway through a scuffle with Mylo, dodging his swings and laughing when he curses at her footwork, when a sharp pain blooms in her ribs. She staggers.
“I didn’t hit you”, Mylo mumbles.
Vi knows that. But it still hurts. A deep, searing ache, like something inside her has cracked.
Powder’s voice wobbles. “Vi?”
Vi forces herself upright. “I’m fine”, she says.
“You’re not”, Powder presses. “You flinched before Mylo even touched you”.
“It’s nothing”, Vi says. She is not exactly lying. The pain is already fading.
Powder doesn’t look convinced. She is still staring at her sister, gears turning in that sharp little head of hers. She stays quiet about it until they get back to the Last Drop. The second she sees Vander, however, she tells him: “Violet has a soul-mate!”
Mylo snorts. “Oh, come on.”
Powder ignores him. “Violet has a soul-mate”, she repeats in a sing-song voice.
“Shut up, kid”, Vi says, but there’s no real bite to it.
“You shut up”, Powder says. “You get hurt all the time, but sometimes you wince at nothing. And sometimes at night, you wake up, like something’s wrong.”
Vi crosses her arms. “I wake up ‘cause you toss and turn”.
Powder shakes her head. “Nope. It’s not me”.
“A soulmate, huh?”. Vander leans forward, resting his elbows on the table like this is the best thing he has heard all day. “That’s rare”.
Vi groans. “Not you too”.
Powder pouts. “I know what I saw”.
Vander watches her for a long moment and then nods. “I believe you, Powder”.
Vi blinks. “Wait, seriously?”. When Vander just smiles at her, Vi pinches the bridge of her nose. “This is – even if I had a soulmate –which is a big if– how is that supposed to work, exactly?”
Vander shrugs, still looking pleased. “Just means there is someone out there who is yours”. His voice softens. “Not a bad thing, is it?”.
Powder frowns. “It is a bad thing if you stay apart. ‘Cause the furthest you are, the worse the pain gets”.
Vi scoffs and ruffles Powder’s hair. “Then maybe I should drop everything and go find them right now”.
She says it like a joke, something to tease Powder with, but later that night, when a fresh sting burns across her arm –one she knows isn’t hers–, she doesn’t laugh. She exhales and presses a hand over the spot, like she can will it away. Like she can shove this whole stupid thing out of her mind.
But the pain lingers. And Vi simply lies awake, and wonders if maybe Powder could be right.
***
A month later, one evening, Vi is walking home through the Lanes when her vision blurs and the world tilts under her feet. Vi feels a deep, sharp pain lanced through her side, hot and breath-stealing, like she has just been hit with something heavy.
Vi stumbles, gasping, and grabs onto the nearest wall for support. The pain fades as quickly as it comes, but Vi is left shaken, hand pressing against her ribs where she expects to find damage.
She doesn’t.
And yet, her heart is still pounding, her fingers still trembling. She doesn’t know why, but she feels sick with anger. Something is very, very wrong with her. She has tried to ignore it. Pretend it wasn’t happening. But after that, it becomes impossible.
Because it keeps happening. Sometimes it is minor. Other times, it is bad. Sudden, sharp pain like a strike to the ribs. A searing, gut-punch ache in her stomach that leaves her winded for a full minute.
The night she finally breaks down, Vander finds her sitting on the edge of her bed, fists clenched so tight her knuckles have gone white.
“I don’t get it”, Vi mutters, voice barely above a whisper.
Vander sighs. “But you do, kid”, he says softly. “You just don’t want to”.
Vi turns to look at him. “What?”
Vander exhales slowly, like he has been bracing for this question. “Powder already told you. It’s your soulmate”.
Vi had heard the stories; correction: the fairytales about soulmates. About people that are tied together, bonded by fate, by something deeper than blood. But those fairytales mostly focus on the good things. On meeting someone who understands you, who feels your joy, your excitement, your love. No one stresses out the tiny detail that soulmates feel every hit, every pain, every bruise their other half gets. And in any case, soulmates are supposed to be a rare thing. Very few people get one. Vi doubts she is one of them.
So, she shakes her head and dismisses the possibility altogether. “I don’t believe in this crap”, she says.
Vander is quiet for a long moment before he finally says, “I think you do now.” His hand is warm when he places it on her shoulder. “It’s a lot to take in”, he says. “You absorb each other’s pain, that’s the ugly part, I know. But the closer you get to each other, the less anything hurts”.
Vi knows that. Or at least, she knows that people who believe in soulmates, people like Powder, say it to be true. “Fantastic”, she says, her voice low. “So all I have to do is randomly get close to a person that I have no idea who or where they are”.
“It’s more likely than you think”, Vander says. “Soulmates are drawn to each other”.
Vi wants to disagree, to raise a million objections to this crazy fantasy, but something more serious takes priority in her head. “Someone has been hurting her lately”, she says. She hates how tight her throat feels.
“Her?”, Vander asks.
Vi shrugs. “Yeah, her”, she repeats. If she has to randomly feel someone else’s pain, then she also has every right to assign this pain to a beautiful girl with dark hair and kind eyes.
“In that case”, Vander says, “let’s hope you find each other quickly”.
***
Vi promises to be careful. To keep her fists down, watch where she steps, pull back before she throws herself into something reckless. Just in case. Just in case Powder and Vander are right. Just in case there really is someone out there, tied to her, suffering every bruise, every cut, every broken bone she carelessly collects.
Vi promises to behave. But then everything falls apart.
Everyone around her dies –except maybe Powder, who is, at best, captured by a sociopathic criminal. And Vi wakes up in Stillwater with nothing but her own body and a brand-new kind of pain.
She forgets her promise as quickly as she forgets herself.
***
Vi realises she had been so blissfully naïve. She thought she knew pain—split knuckles, the sharp crack of a fist against her ribs, the deep burn of a bone that doesn’t set right. She thought she had felt enough. She was so wrong.
She quickly learns what it feels to be beaten without mercy, to have her body treated like something disposable, to wake up every day knowing it will only get worse. Pain in Stillwater is different. It isn’t a moment, a brief sting that she can shake off. It is relentless. It is systematic. It is a lesson carved into her bones, over and over and over again. And the worst part –the absolute worst part– is that she now believes that she isn’t the only one feeling it.
Her soulmate, wherever they are, must be thinking they are dying.
At first, Vi fights like she always does. She spits curses, cracks her knuckles, swings at anyone who gets too close. But Stillwater doesn’t reward resistance –it punishes it. The more she struggles, the worse it gets.
The first time they shock her, two guards drag her to the centre of her cell, shove her to her knees, and press the baton to her ribs. The jolt is instant –white-hot agony tearing through her body, forcing a scream from her throat before she can stop it.
And somewhere –somewhere– someone else screams too.
Vi feels it. Not with her ears, but with something deeper, something raw and unshakable. She feels their terror, their confusion, their agony. And she understands, with absolute certainty, that they don’t know why this is happening to them. She bites down so hard on her next scream that she tastes blood. After that, she tries to stop feeling anything at all.
She shuts down. Lets the guards do what they want. Takes every hit without reaction. She makes her body a thing that just exists – a hollow space where Vi used to be. If she must suffer, she can take it. She can and will live with it. But she can’t stand the thought of her –her stranger– enduring it too.
Maybe if she stops fighting, the pain will become bearable. Maybe if she lets herself disappear, her soulmate will forget about her. Maybe their connection will fade. Maybe that would be better. Because Vi has nothing to offer her. No comfort. No promise. No escape. And if she feels even a fraction of what she does…
She doesn’t want to think about that. She can’t. Because there is absolutely nothing she can do to stop it.
***
On the fifth anniversary of her stay in Stillwater, Vi thinks she will finally die. She doesn’t know what she has done to deserve this beating. Not that it matters. The guards in Stillwater never need reasons. Some days, they barely need excuses. Maybe she looked at one of them the wrong way. Maybe she hesitated before answering. Maybe they are just bored.
All she knows is the sharp, sickening crunch of a fist slamming into her ribs, white-hot pain blooming through her chest before she can even brace for it. Her breath hitches, her knees buckle, but the second punch comes too fast for her to fall. A knuckle cracks against her cheekbone, snapping her head to the side. Her vision blurs. Blood fills her mouth. A hand fists in her hair, yanking her upright just as she starts to collapse.
“Not so tough now, huh?”. The voice is, as usually, amused at her pain.
Vi grits her teeth, forcing herself to stay silent. A fist drives into her stomach –once, twice– digging deep, forcing the air from her lungs with a sound that isn’t even a gasp. More like a strangled wheeze. A pathetic, broken thing. She doesn’t even realize she’s falling until the cold stone rushes up to meet her.
But they aren’t done.
A boot crashes into her side. Then another. The sickening crack of bone giving way sends nausea rolling through her stomach. Her ribs scream and an unbearable agony spreads through her entire torso. Vi curls inward instinctively, tries to shield herself, but hands grab her and flip her onto her back. A knee slams down against her chest, pressing hard, grinding into ribs that are definitely broken.
Vi can't breathe. Her hands claw weakly at the weight pinning her, fingers curling, uncurling, useless. Every breath sounds deafening in her ears, too loud, too wrong. She can feel her own heartbeat hammering inside her ribs –wild, frantic, animal. A final burst of life in a body that can’t take much more. Then another fist crashes into her jaw, snapping her head back against the stone.
The world tilts. Spins. Blood drips down her chin, warm and thick. Someone mutters something – Vi can’t make out the words, only the laughter that follows. The weight finally lifts. The hands let go. She barely feels herself being dragged back to her cell, her body nothing but fire and raw agony. They dump her like trash and her cheek hits the freezing floor with a sickening sound.
The cell door slams shut. Footsteps fade. Vi lies there, barely breathing, fingers twitching against the stone. She wants to move. To sit up. To do something. But she can only stare at the ceiling and hope for the darkness to take her.
She doesn’t know how long she lies there. Pain is everywhere and everything. A deep, burning ache in her ribs, every inhale like a knife slicing through her chest. Her stomach throbs where their fists have landed, the muscles spasm with each shallow breath. Blood pools thick in her mouth, coating her tongue, her teeth. She turns her head slightly, lets it drip from her lips onto the stone with a soft patter. The taste of iron lingers, and it's bitter and nauseating and familiar. Her jaw just won’t sit right. Vi doesn’t dare touch it.
None of that hurts as much as the thought of her.
Vi squeezes her eyes shut, trying to push away the image that always surfaces when the pain is this bad –an unknown figure, a shadow of a person she has never met but has always been there. She feels her, or maybe she just imagines it. A flicker of warmth against her skin, gone before she can place it. A whisper of breath that isn’t hers, hitching on the same pain. Sometimes, when the nights stretch too long and her body won’t stop shaking, she swears she hears something –half a sob, half a gasp. But maybe she’s just losing her mind in this hellhole.
A broken sob tears from her throat, her own voice hoarse. She curls onto her side, cradling her ribs, shaking as the pain pulses through her. “I’m sorry”, she whispers. The words barely make it past her lips. “I’m so –so sorry”.
She presses her forehead to the cold stone. Tears burn at the corners of her swollen eyes. The irony isn’t lost on Vi. She had spent so much time wondering about this person, worrying about them, hating that they suffered. And all she had managed to do for the past five fucking years is become the one hurting them.
Vi sucks in a breath, wincing at the pain it sends flaring through her chest. This isn’t fair. None of it is fair. She shouldn’t have to feel this. She shouldn’t have to suffer just because she is suffering. But there is nothing she could do.
Nothing except–
Find me, Vi pleads silently. Please.
Her whole body is shaking. It is stupid. It is pointless. No one is coming. No one even knows where Vi is. But she can’t stop the thought from forming, from slipping through the cracks of her breaking mind. She imagines it often –someone bursting through the heavy doors of Stillwater, storming through the halls, shoving the guards aside like they are nothing. A hand reaching for hers, warm and steady, pulling her up, pulling her out. She imagines looking up into a face she has never seen before but somehow knows. She imagines safety. Freedom. And every time she indulges in these fantasies, because she has nothing left –because the pain is too much, because she is exhausted, because she can’t sleep if she doesn’t– Vi lets the sobs take her under.
She doesn’t try to fight them anymore. She just curls in on herself, shaking and broken, and cries herself into the only escape Stillwater ever allowed.
Sleep.
***
Vi doesn’t know how long it takes her to walk again. To be able to open her mouth and chew her food. To take more than three steps without feeling like she will collapse. She stops keeping track of the days. The weeks. The months. Time doesn’t mean much in Stillwater. It’s just an endless cycle of cold stone, stale air, and the crack of fists against her body.
Once she is better, she gets into a fist fight with another inmate –because why the hell not? She earns for herself a swollen eye and a few days in isolation. She returns to her cell with a bad cold that makes her burn with a fever that her body doesn’t seem to know how to fight against. Vi spends the day sitting on the floor with her back against the wall and her arms draped over her knees. Every part of her aches, but she is used to it by now. Pain is a constant. It is just another day. The fever that has been sucking the life out of her slowly and deliberately is simply an added Stillwater bonus.
That’s when she hears footsteps. Not the heavy stomp of a guard. Something quieter. Faster.
Vi doesn’t lift her head at first. There is no point. Sometimes, in the fevered haze of half-sleep, she hears things that aren’t there. The distant echo of a voice. The sound of a door creaking open. The warmth of a hand on hers. None of it is real. Never has been.
But then the lock rattles. Her body tenses out of instinct. This could easily be simply another cruel trick, the prelude to another round of merciless beating.
Then the door swings open.
Vi blinks. A woman stands there. An enforcer, out of all the people her aching brain could have fathomed. She is tall and has a rifle slung over her back. Her eyes are blue. Vi’s breath stutters. She knows this isn’t real. It can’t be. She has imagined this too many times before, lying on the floor, bleeding, praying for someone –her– to walk through that door and save her.
But she never actually does.
The woman steps inside and her lips press into a firm line as she takes her in. The bruises. The swollen eye. The exhaustion. For a second, the woman just stands there, useless as any other ghost that has ever visited Vi. Then her voice comes, low and urgent. “You're Vi, right?”
Vi forces a grin, even though it hurts. “Shouldn’t you already know that?”, she asks.
The woman exhales through her nose. “I'm here to get you out”. She steps closer and crouches down, close enough that Vi could touch her to test her ghost theory. “Can you walk?”
Vi shifts slightly –fuck, that hurts– and forces herself to sit up straighter. The cell spins, tilting sideways. Her stomach lurches. The fever is bad. Worse than she thought. “I don’t think so”.
The woman pulls something out of her uniform –a folded set of papers. “These will get us past the guards”, she says. “But we need to go now”.
Vi stares at her. The words make no sense. “Sure”, she says.
The woman frowns. “Hey”, she says. There is a sharp edge to her voice that Vi doesn’t like. “My name is Caitlyn Kiramman. I’m getting you out of here”.
When Vi offers no response, the woman, Caitlyn, reaches into her backpack and produces a flask. She presses it against Vi’s cracked lips, and the water is so cool and clean, that Vi would drink all of it if her throat ever decided to cooperate. She swallows with effort and winces at the raw burn left behind.
“Easy”, Caitlyn murmurs. Her hand is steady under Vi’s chin, tilting her head just enough to help her drink.
Vi should pull away. Shouldn’t let some posh enforcer touch her like this. But the second the woman’s fingers brush her skin, the pain lessens –just enough for Vi to breathe again, just enough for the pounding in her skull to dull to something bearable.
When she understands Vi can’t drink more, Caitlyn puts the flask down. She reaches out and presses a hand to her forehead. “You are burning up”, she mutters.
The relief that floods Vi’s body at the woman’s touch is better than any drug she has ever tried in this prison. But confusion follows fast on its heels. Ghosts don’t touch her. They never have, no matter how many times Vi begged them to.
Caitlyn reaches for Vi’s arm. “Come on”, she urges.
Vi lets Caitlyn haul her up. She stumbles, but Caitlyn catches her. For a second, Vi just stands there, chest heaving, head swimming. She feels the warmth of Caitlyn's body against hers. The solidness of her grip. And –strangely– she realizes the pain isn’t that bad anymore. It is still there, still biting, but something about Caitlyn being this close lessens it.
This is nice. Vi doesn’t really understand it but she probably doesn’t need to. She can go now, she can finally let go and be with her mom again. This feeling, this eye- watering relief is probably her body finally giving up and shutting down, and that’s okay.
Caitlyn adjusts her grip. Her arm is tight around Vi’s waist. She still acts like this is real.
“I’m dying”, Vi says, not to this Caitlyn, which is obviously a figment of her failing brain, but to herself.
Caitlyn tenses. “No, you are not.”
She moves fast. Too fast for Vi to process. One second, she is propping her up, and the next, she is shifting Vi’s arm over her shoulder, practically carrying her forward. Caitlyn moves with purpose. Every time Vi stumbles, Caitlyn tightens her hold.
“Hold on”, she murmurs. “We’re almost there”.
Vi’s head lolls. “Like I know where ‘there’ is.”
They take a turn, then another. The corridors blur together, stone and metal and darkness. Then they see the guards. Two of them, standing at the final checkpoint before the exit. Vi tenses, but Caitlyn doesn’t slow. She pulls out the documents and strides forward like she belongs there.
“Transfer order,” she says.
“At this hour?”
Caitlyn doesn’t hesitate. “New directive from Piltover,” she says, annoyance laced in her tone. “You want to wake up the councillor and double-check?”
The guards exchange glances. “No need. You’re clear”.
To Vi’s surprise, Caitlyn turns to them and says “thank you” before guiding her outside. Vi would laugh if she had any strength left in her. This is the politest law-breaking ghost she has encountered. And it made escaping hell look easy. Way too easy. Then again, she is dying. Everything should feel easy when you’re about to die. That’s her best and only guess.
***
Then they are outside.
The air hits Vi like a slap –sharp and cold against her burning skin. She sucks in a breath, lungs protesting the sudden rush of freedom. It tastes strange; too fresh, too real. Her legs nearly buckle, but Caitlyn’s grip keeps her steady.
Caitlyn doesn’t stop. She moves quickly and guides Vi down a narrow alley. The world blurs, the fever distorts everything –shadows stretch too long, the buildings sway in ways they shouldn’t. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. Vi lets Caitlyn pull her forward, her body floating somewhere between exhaustion and delirium.
Only when they are far enough, swallowed by the dark, does Caitlyn finally slow down. She shifts Vi’s weight and eases her down against a wall. The second Caitlyn lets go, the warmth disappears, and the pain comes crashing back. Vi gasps, curls in on herself as her ribs scream, her muscles seize. It’s like being hit all over again, like every wound that disappeared for the last hour urgently demands to be felt.
Caitlyn crouches beside her. “Vi?” Her voice is sharp but Vi barely hears her over the ringing in her ears. “Hey”, Caitlyn mutters. Her hand presses against Vi’s forehead again, and Vi can’t help the way she leans into it. It’s the only thing that dulls the fire burning under her skin. Caitlyn exhales through her nose. “Your fever is way too high”. Her fingers linger, they brush against Vi’s cheek before she pulls back.
The moment her touch is gone, Vi’s limbs tremble. “Don’t do that”, she pleads but doesn’t have the strength to explain herself. The fever still whispers at the edges of her mind, coaxing her back into the dream of Stillwater, back into the years of pain and nothingness. But this –this is different. The ache in her ribs, the chill of the night, the sharpness of Caitlyn’s voice –all of it is real. Too real.
She isn’t dying. Not yet.
Caitlyn shifts again. “Vi”.
She hesitates, then reaches for Vi’s jacket. With careful hands, she pulls it tighter around Vi’s shoulders. She pulls Vi’s hoodie up over her head and tucks the edges around her face to keep the warmth in. Her touch is so gentle. So intentional. Unlike everything else in Vi’s life so far. “This should help”, Caitlyn murmurs.
Vi swallows hard and forces her eyes open. Caitlyn is still there, crouched in front of her, watching her. Vi coughs and tastes blood. So much for not dying. “Why?”
Caitlyn hesitates. “What? Why did I break you out?”
Vi nods. She is thankful she doesn’t have to actually speak in complete sentences for Caitlyn to understand what she is trying to say. Not that she can, anyway. Every word scrapes her throat like sandpaper, every breath feels like a battle she has already lost.
Caitlyn’s expression hardens. “I actually need your help.”
Vi huffs a weak laugh. “Wrong girl”, she says.
Caitlyn doesn’t smile. “Right girl. A few days ago you beat up an inmate, a valuable witness at the last Silco fiasco”.
Vi stills at the name. “Well”, she says when she recovers, “I’m sorry?”. It comes out so dishonest that it would have immediately earned her a punch in the stomach from any enforcer worth their salt.
Caitlyn only frowns. All the more proof she isn’t real. “I need help tracking Silco’s associates”, she says. “I have a feeling you know more than you let on”.
Vi’s head thumps against the wall. “Like I said, wrong. girl”.
Caitlyn pats her thigh. “We’ll see about that”.
Vi exhales sharply. Every muscle, every bruise, every broken piece of her screams at once –but when Caitlyn’s hand lingers, the pain dulls, just a little. Just enough. The fever gripping Vi’s body loosens its hold, ebbing like a tide drawn back into the sea. Her pulse steadies. Her ribs don’t feel like they’re about to splinter apart.
Then Caitlyn pulls away and the relief vanishes. The fever surges back with a vengeance and Vi shudders violently. “No”, she rasps, the word escaping before she can stop it. “Don’t–”
Caitlyn frowns. She reaches for her again, presses her palm against Vi’s cheek. The second she does, the fire subsides. Not completely, but enough to make Vi’s breath steady, enough to stop the trembling in her hands.
Caitlyn probably notices. Her brows draw together as her eyes scan Vi’s face. “Is this better?” she murmurs, as her fingers brush against Vi’s cheek again. Her touch sends something deeper than relief through Vi –something grounding, something safe.
Vi exhales. “Yes.”
Caitlyn doesn’t move, doesn’t pull back this time. “You’re not shaking”.
“I know,” Vi says, voice barely above a whisper. “Guess you’ve got a sweet touch, cupcake.”
Caitlyn doesn’t react to the nickname. She is still watching her, blue eyes sharp and searching. Vi swallows against the dryness in her throat, against the painful realization sinking in her gut.
This isn’t normal.
She has felt pain her entire life but never has something like this happened. Never has someone’s mere presence quieted the agony in her body. Never has she needed someone’s touch to keep her standing.
Caitlyn shifts again, adjusting Vi’s weight against her. “Come on,” she says, voice softer now. “We need to move. Get you somewhere safe to sleep.”
“If I sleep”, Vi mumbles, “I won’t–”
“Yes, you will”, Caitlyn says and Vi starts to find her ability to understand her incomplete sentences annoying. “I promise you, Vi, you will wake up”.
***
Vi doesn’t remember believing her, but at some point she does wake up and she is very much alive. All the proof she needs is that she is in a shitload of pain and there is no ghost next to her to take it away this time.
At least she is in a real bed and not in Stillwater. So the escape part must have actually happened.
Vi shifts in the bed. Her skin is burning, but she shivers anyway, caught somewhere between waking and dreaming. She hears movement; soft and careful. A chair scraping. Someone watching her. She forces her eyes open. It takes a second to focus, but then she sees blue.
Caitlyn.
Vi’s throat is dry, but she forces out a sound –half a chuckle, half a sigh. “Of all the times I dreamed of you”, she rasps, “this time you actually bothered to show up”.
Caitlyn’s lips part slightly. A crease forms between her brows. “You’re awake”, she says. Her voice is the softest thing Vi has heard for the past six years. “You are safe. You need to rest.” She hesitates, then reaches out and presses a damp cloth against Vi’s forehead.
The relief is immediate.
Vi’s eyes slip shut again. “How do you do that?”, she murmurs. “Who are you?”
“I’m Caitlyn Kiramman”, Caitlyn says, as if that explains everything. “You can call me Cait”.
Vi lets out a faint hum, half amusement, half exhaustion. “That’s not what I meant”.
Cait keeps the cloth against Vi’s forehead. “Just rest”, she says.
Vi’s tongue feels heavy in her mouth, but the words come anyway. “You were there”, she says. “I swear I saw you in Stillwater. You would come in, say my name. Get me out. Not really, but, you know. It was a nice dream”.
“You are out now”, Caitlyn says.
“I wish”.
Vi cracks her eyes open again. Caitlyn is staring at her like she has lost her mind. Then, slowly, she pulls the cloth away. “It’s the fever”, she says. “You are still burning up”.
Vi exhales a laugh, barely more than a breath. “Yeah.” She lets her eyes close, eager to let the exhaustion win. She barely registers it when Caitlyn shifts beside her, murmuring something under her breath. Then there’s a cool touch at her lips, the rim of a glass nudging gently against them.
“Vi”, Caitlyn says. “Take this for me”.
Something small and bitter presses against Vi’s tongue. A pill.
“I promise it will help,” Caitlyn says, her fingers light against Vi’s jaw, guiding without forcing.
Vi takes the pill. Not because she understands, not because she thinks to question it –but because Caitlyn is here, and she is warm, and for the first time in years, someone is taking care of her.
***
The second time Vi wakes, everything is different.
The fire burning under her skin is gone. The fevered fog has lifted, and the room –wherever they are– is steady and real. No more melting walls. No more voices that don’t exist.
Caitlyn is still there, sitting by the bed, but she’s not hovering like before. When Vi stirs, Caitlyn glances up immediately.
“You look better,” she says.
Vi licks her cracked lips. “Guess so”.
Caitlyn leans forward. “The antipyretics worked”, she tells her. “Your fever broke”.
Vi blinks. “The what worked?”
“It’s medicine”, Caitlyn explains. “For fever.”
Vi hums. “Good stuff”.
“Good thing I had them on me”, Caitlyn says. She says it casually, but something is off. There’s a strange hitch to her voice, a tightness at the edges Vi can’t place.
“Why did you?”, she asks.
“I had a fever myself these past few days”, Caitlyn says and Vi knows that this an important piece of information, that she should be piecing something together right now, but her brain feels slow, fogged by exhaustion.
Caitlyn fidgets, shifts her weight, then tries to steer the conversation away. “Do you remember anything from last night?”, she asks.
Vi frowns. Dreams and reality blur at the edges, but one thing is clear; Caitlyn was there. Cooling her down. Keeping her steady. And every time she touched her, the pain had eased. Vi swallows. “Yeah”, she says. “Bits and pieces”.
“Do you believe that I am real now?”, Caitlyn asks.
Vi smirks. “If you’re not, this is one hell of a hallucination”.
Caitlyn huffs out something like a laugh. She still looks too tense, too tired– like she is waiting for Vi to collapse again. “You should eat something”, she says.
“I really should”. Vi surprises herself with how eager she sounds. Food in prison was something she just needed to survive, not something she ever desired or enjoyed. But, then again, she has spent the past few days alone in her cell with no food at all.
She thinks about cracking a joke, about saying something like “there was no room service in Stillwater, cupcake”, but then–
Then Caitlyn pulls a small package of cookies from her backpack, opens it, and holds one out for Vi.
Vi freezes.
For a second, she isn’t here. She’s a kid again, sitting at Vander’s bar, bruised and exhausted but safe. He’s setting a plate in front of her—nothing fancy, just something to eat, something to fill the aching hollow in her stomach.
“Vi?” Caitlyn prompts.
Vi blinks back into the present. “Yeah”. She reaches out and takes the cookie. “Thanks”.
The second she takes the first bite, a familiar ache flares along her jaw. She clenches it instinctively, but the pain is sharp, a reminder of the night the guards shattered it. It never healed properly.
“What’s wrong?”, Caitlyn asks.
Vi exhales slowly. “It’s nothing”, she says, but even to her own ears, it sounds forced.
This is stupid. She can handle a little pain. She shifts her jaw, testing it. The bone clicks, and Vi swears under her breath.
“Your jaw”, Caitlyn says. “How bad is it?”
Vi shakes her head, but before she can lie again, Caitlyn’s fingers brush against her chin. The moment they touch, the pain fades. Just like in prison, just like every time Cait has touched her since they met.
Vi exhales.
Caitlyn doesn’t pull away. Her thumb brushes lightly along Vi’s jawline and her palm steadies her face. “Does this help?” she asks.
Vi swallows. Nods.
Caitlyn holds her touch. For a moment, neither of them speak. Caitlyn stays like that for a moment longer, then shifts. “Okay”, she murmurs. “Here”.
She breaks off a smaller piece of the cookie and offers it to Vi. Vi hesitates for a second, but then reaches for it. It’s dry as hell, but it’s good. It’s food. It’s safe. It’s the first time in years someone has sat with her, made sure she ate, made sure she was okay.
When the sharp ache in her stomach dulls into something softer, Vi stops eating. Caitlyn leans back in her chair. She exhales. “It’s good your appetite is back,” she says.
But something in her voice is off.
Vi frowns. “You okay, cupcake?”
Caitlyn huffs. “Don’t call me that”. She reaches for the empty glass by the bed, but the motion is too stiff, too controlled. Vi doesn’t notice at first—not until Caitlyn winces, just slightly, as she shifts.
And then Vi sees the quiet, practiced motion –a hand slipping into her pocket, fingers twisting the cap off a bottle before Caitlyn tips a pill into her palm and swallows it dry.
Vi’s stomach twists. “Do you still have a fever?” she asks.
Caitlyn hesitates for half a second before shrugging. “It’s just a precaution”, she says. She won’t look at her.
She turns, maybe thinking the conversation is over, but Vi reaches out without thinking and catches her wrist. The moment they touch, everything shifts. The aches, the exhaustion, the bruises layered over bruises—it all fades. Just like that. It’s so immediate, so overwhelming, that Vi forgets to breathe.
Caitlyn stills. She exhales, as if a weight has been lifted off her too. “Vi?”
Vi exhales slowly. Her pulse is loud in her ears.
No. No way.
Her fingers tighten. It hits her all at once. The years of unexplained pain. The fever Caitlyn had for the exact same period she did. The way her pain fucking stopped when Caitlyn was close. When she touched her forehead, when she cupped her jaw. Vi remembers Powder’s voice, small but certain.
Violet has a soulmate.
She had laughed it off back then. She doesn’t laugh now. She looks at Caitlyn—at the dark circles under her eyes, the stiffness in her limbs, the pills she’s still trying to pretend she doesn’t need.
Vi knows exactly what she’s looking at. Caitlyn has been hurting for a long, long time.
Caitlyn pulls her hand back slowly, frowning like she feels the absence of the touch too, but she doesn’t say anything. Just grabs the glass and turns away.
Vi watches her go. She doesn’t say a word. This girl, this beautiful, kind woman that belongs anywhere else but next to Vi, is her soulmate.
And she has been living in a world of pain because of her.