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Rain patters down outside, drops running down the windowpanes of the Kiramman mansion. They cast ever-shifting shadows over the paperwork covering Caitlyn's desk. Cait follows the path of a large droplet until it rolls out of sight.
She tosses her pen down in frustration. The nobles will just have to wait a couple more days. She can't focus on their endless complaints any longer. She'll never understand how her mother did this day-in and day-out without going mad.
Her mother. Memories of a funeral adorned in purple flowers flash through her mind and the ever-present lump of grief in her stomach seems to grow heavier.
She gets up from the desk to go find Violet. Halfway to the door, though, she stops. The sad, lonely part of her wants Vi so badly it aches, but the other part doesn't want to bother her partner.
Cait doesn't want to put anything else on Vi's shoulders. She's dealing with enough as it is. Insurmountable grief. The loss of Vander and Jinx, and a half dozen other friends killed in the fighting.
But Caitlyn is struggling. The war, Ambessa's attempt to kill her, her mother's death, Maddie's betrayal, having to reconcile with her own propensity for violence… All of it has worn her down. But the hardest thing is her eye, and the consequences of the injury.
The pain is the most obvious issue. Three months out from the laceration, it still aches abominably. The eyedrops she has to put in every few hours burn like fire, and the socket still feels bruised and swollen. What little vision she has left is hazy at best. She's just able to process movement and some color out of the eye, but nothing more. Not that she uses it, anyway. It is incredibly sensitive to light. Even the soft glow of a candle flame hurts, though at least that issue does seem to be lessening with time.
So she wears an eye patch, only taking it off to sleep and applying her drops. She prefers to keep it hidden, anyway. The sight of the scarring makes Cait's stomach turn with shame and embarrassment. She hates for other people to see it.
The pain and the shame aren't the biggest problem, though. Cait has lost her greatest passion, her best skill, the thing that has kept her sane. She'll never be a sharpshooter again.
The loss is nothing compared to what Vi has had taken from her, Cait reasons. Vi is buried under her own grief, mourning her sister and Vander all over again. She's lost them both twice, and somehow hasn't broken. But there are moments when it's clear she is more fragile than she once was.
So Cait says nothing about her own pain. She holds Vi in the night as her arms twitch, boxing some threat in her ever-present nightmares.
Cait eventually falls asleep, too, and finds her own demons waiting for her in her head. She dreams of losing her mother. The bullet that nearly lanced through her skull. The knife pushed into her stomach. All the death around her and the strange numbness as Viktor took control of her mind.
Mostly she relives the seconds before her injury. She remembers it all, from the point of the blade hovering so close that she couldn't focus on it, to the smallest sensation of sweat dripping down the back of her neck.
Sometimes, though, the nightmares recede. Caitlyn dreams of crisp fall mornings, the scent of frost and old leaves in the air, a hint of gunpowder below it all. Grayson is there, her rough laugh ringing out as they practice skeet shooting and long-distance marksmanship.
Waking from those dreams… Cait would rather endure the nightmares. She'll never have Grayson back, or the skills taught to her. Those mornings are the hardest.
Vi must sense something is up. She starts insisting that Cait come with her to the gym, even though Cait isn't supposed to be working out yet. Something about avoiding pressure in her eye. She brings stacks of paperwork along, leafing through reports and charts to the sounds of Vi's gloves hitting the punching bag.
Being with Vi eases some of her stress, but there's nothing her partner can do to fix what's really bothering her.
Another week passes. The doctor finally tells Cait that she can't wear the eyepatch forever. She has to strengthen what little function she has left in the eye. He tells her to start with ten minutes and work her way up to thirty.
Inside, it's merely uncomfortable, but sunlight is like a knife to her brain. Over the course of a week, though, dimmer light sources hurt less. If only her urge to hide the scarring would lessen with time, too.
Having her eye exposed brings a whole new thing to get under Cait's skin. She can see movement on her left side now, but without a way to discern what it is, Cait becomes incredibly jumpy.
She keeps her left side to solid objects to avoid anything startling her.
Vi notices. Of course she does. Cait gives her some excuse, still unwilling to discuss just how much she's struggling.
Vi gives her a worried look but doesn't press the issue. She never comments when Cait quickly slaps a hand over her eye to hide it when anyone else is around. Instead, she hugs Cait and kisses her forehead, ever mindful of her proximity to still-tender skin.
Cait tries to return to a steady routine, hoping it will help. The problem is that the routine she craves involves going shooting each morning.
She tries it, just once, to see if it's possible to return to it, even if her accuracy is lost. It doesn't go well.
She goes out early, before the mist has fully lifted off the grounds. Targets are already set. They stand quietly in the damp air. Cait meticulously inspects her rifle, finding comfort in the cool touch of metal under her fingertips.
Cait loads the gun, lines up the shot. Breathe in, breathe out, fire. Instantly, the recoil from the shot sends jarring pain through her stomach and skull and she nearly drops her gun.
There's warm wetness under the eye patch. She rips it off, fingers coming away red. Shit.
An hour later, Cait sits miserably in a chair as the doctor packs up his bag. He had thoroughly chastised her for doing something so reckless, explaining that sudden pressure changes inside her eye are dangerous. Thankfully the blood had only been from a burst vessel in the socket and nothing more serious.
Cait tells herself that she'll be healed enough, one day, to withstand the shock of a gunshot again. Even as she repeats the thought over and over, she doesn't feel much hope.
With shooting indefinitely off the table, Cait needs something else to do. She's never been able to stand idle hands. Reading only fills so many hours in a day, and it leaves her good eye tired, forced to compensate. Her quest for something to do leads to cooking.
There has been no shortage of staff to bring her meals since she was little. It seems like now is as good a time as any to change that.
Cait finds an uneasy rhythm in preparing her own food. The first attempts are… less than stellar. She somehow manages to burn pasta as it's boiling. Embarrassing, really.
A week in, and she has definitely improved. Her mood has lifted by a small margin, too.
Unfortunately, it doesn't last.
Cait is in the kitchen dicing vegetables for a stir fry. It’s raining again. Storming, more accurately. Lightning flashes outside and thunder follows a moment later. The rumbling crack makes her flinch. She sets down the knife and scoops up the chunks of bell peppers to set aside, relieved to be done working with a blade when the weather is making her jump. Ever since the battle, unexpected loud noises have been hard on Cait’s nervous system.
She moves to the sink to wash some snow peas, tossing them gently in a colander as she sprays them down.
There is the sound of footsteps just beyond the kitchen. Cait jiggles the colander, shaking excess water back into the sink, before turning towards the stove.
Red. That's all Caitlyn can see out of her eye. Red that is rapidly approaching her. Noxus. Another boom of thunder, so loud it shakes the house.
The snow peas hit the floor, scattering.
Cait's body reacts instinctively, whirling around and slamming her elbow into her attacker. She pins them against the wall with wet hands, heart thudding. She doesn’t have a weapon. Shit. The knife is out of reach.
“Stop! You're hurting me!”
Cait freezes, recognizing the voice. She realizes it's Vi under her grip. The red is Vi's jacket, not anyone from Noxus. She releases immediately, starting to shake.
“What the hell, Cait?!” Vi asks, rubbing her neck. Her eyes are furious.
She stares at Violet for a few seconds, processing what she's done. An angry welt is already starting to rise on Vi's throat.
Trembling, Caitlyn starts to cry. Everything crashes down on her at once. She buries her face in her hands and turns away, horrified that Vi is seeing her like this.
“Cupcake?” Vi says, all traces of anger leaving her.
Cait refuses to look at her, stumbling towards the sitting room. Gods, if she had still been cutting the vegetables, she could have stabbed Vi instead of just hitting her.
Violet follows, concern creasing her brow. “Talk to me, Cait. Please?”
It's a long time before Cait can even form a sentence. “You scared me,” she says.
“I didn't mean to. What did I do?” Vi guides Caitlyn to sit on one of the couches, then sinks down beside her. She refuses to move her hand away from her eye, even when Vi gently tugs at her wrist.
“Your jacket. It's red. I thought- Noxus-” Caitlyn grits her teeth for a moment. “You came up on my blind side.”
There. She's said it. An admission that she'll never see properly from that eye again. That she'll never be what she once was.
“Oh, Cait,” Violet murmurs.
Everything spills out then. The pain, the anger, the doubt. Cait buries her face against Vi's chest as she sobs, finally giving voice to her own grief.
“The thunder. I saw the red moving and I just… reacted, I suppose. I'm sorry, Violet.”
Vi kisses her forehead. “You should have told me.”
“I didn't want to make things worse for you. You've lost so much. The last thing you need is someone else to take care of.”
“Not when it's you. Making sure you're safe and comfortable helps me, too, you know. I love you.”
Cait just cries. Every bit of stoicism built around her heart crumples as the weight of everything crashes down. The emotions heave themselves out, vicious and ugly and wet. She doesn't even care that Violet can see the scars across her face. Not right now.
Vi rubs Caitlyn's back, up and down, in circles, her entire body shaken by the strength of her partner's grief. She wipes her own tears away.
“I feel like I'll never be myself again,” Cait sobs. “What if I can't be the person you love anymore.”
Violet pulls Cait closer, almost on top of her now. “I love you, Cupcake. I mean that. I'm not going anywhere.”
Caitlyn can't respond, a new wave of sobs choking her voice. She is aware of Vi moving underneath her, and then she's suddenly pressed between the back of the couch and Vi's warm bulk. It feels safe.
The adrenaline now gone from her body, Cait's energy falters. Her crying weakens and she trembles, tucking her face into the hollow of Vi's throat. She can feel Vi's heartbeat against her cheek, pulsing strong and alive just beneath her skin.
“How long has this been going on?” Vi asks quietly.
It takes Cait a long moment to answer, ashamed. “Since the battle.”
Vi makes a displeased noise but doesn't rebuke her. Instead, reddened knuckles brush over Cait's cheek. “You can talk to me. I don't want you to hide what you're going through. It only makes it worse.”
Cait sniffs and nods. Fresh tears trickle from her eyes, smearing on Vi's skin. “I'm sorry.”
“Look at me?”
It takes several long moments for Cait to gather the resolve to lift her head and meet Vi's tender gaze. She moves to cover her eye but Vi gently grasps her wrist. Ever so softly, Vi brushes her lips over the raised scar tissue at the corner of Cait's eye.
Cait flinches but then stills, letting her partner linger.
Vi finally moves and kisses the crown of Cait's head. “Let's just rest here a while, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Hey, Cait?”
“Hmm?”
“You're amazing. You know that, right? We're going to figure this out.”
Cait sighs and nuzzles Vi’s neck, finding it hard to speak. Vi seems to understand and curls around her more tightly. She doesn’t comment when the thunder makes Cait jump over and over, just holds her. The noise isn’t so distressing like this. They lay there with tired eyes, listening to the storm roll overhead.