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"Truly a pity that the Kiramman legacy will end in our times, Sheriff," says the snooty prick that Vi's not allowed to deck across the jaw. "After all your family has done for Piltover, it seems a darn shame to have it end here, with you." He does a little sniff too, purely performative. It would surprise her if he could smell anything over the cloying scent that he has been dragging around with him.
Caitlyn's lips curl in a cool smile, her hand resting loosely in the crook of Vi's elbow.
"I think I've done quite enough to cement a lasting legacy. I thank you for your consideration, Councilor Ferros. In particular, one might consider that it was through Kiramman reforms to the council that granted House Ferros the seat you now occupy."
Her eye flutters shut ever so briefly, met with that high society dip of her head that she has perfected over the decades.
It is so blatantly, politely patronizing that it makes Vi want to laugh and to drag her off somewhere far away from this stuffy occasion to kiss her stupid in her Sheriff blues. From the twinkle in Caitlyn's eye and the quirk of Caitlyn's lips at the retreating back of Stevan Ferros the Second, Vi can tell that Caitlyn knows.
All these years and her heart still fills so full, still runs over.
"Vi," says Caitlyn two days later from the rattan chair in the solarium, curled up on it like a giant lizard under a very soft tartan blanket as the snow falls outside. (Vi knows the blanket is very soft because she is half under it, a book in her hands.)
"Mm?"
She twists, raising her head from Caitlyn's lap and putting her book down at the serious tone.
"I know we spoke about this many years ago," Caitlyn says. "But recent events brought this topic to mind—" fingers card through Vi's hair in that way she loves so much "—and it only seems fair to discuss this since it's not something I get to decide singlehandedly."
Vi waits.
"Would you want to have done things differently?"
Vi thinks about her job, thinks about her home, thinks about the laugh lines that show themselves when Caitlyn smiles, the softness of her stomach and the aches in her bones when it rains. She thinks about Six who is too old to run with Caitlyn on the trails, about how small he had been, how he'd chewed up at least one heirloom table leg. She thinks about the new recruits who think they don't know about the bet on whether Caitlyn will retire before her hair goes entirely white.
"No," she says as she grins. "No, I think I'd have married you again."
Caitlyn rolls her eyes from behind her gold-trimmed glasses. "Vi."
"Yes, Cait?"
"You know that's not what I'm asking."
"I do."
Caitlyn's hand has drifted down to her jaw. "And yet you give me such cheek."
"That," Vi says like the annoying pedant her wife is, "is my jaw."
"Violet."
"Caitlyn." She reaches up and tugs that hand down into hers. "No," she says. "I'm happy as we are. Look—" she gestures with their entwined hands.
Caitlyn's eyebrows raise even as she casts her gaze about the room.
"I'm not seeing anything out of the ordinary," she says.
"Listen," says Vi.
A heartbeat, two heartbeats, the soft muted howl of the wind.
"I'm not hearing anything," says Caitlyn.
"Exactly," Vi says. "Peace. Tranquility."
Caitlyn's eyebrows stay raised.
"You know children are a nightmare," Vi says. "First they can't talk, and then they can talk—" she shudders "—and then they don't stop talking which is even worse—"
Caitlyn chuckles and swats gently at her shoulders.
"You like children," she says. "I've seen you with them."
"For a while," Vi says. "From afar. When I can give them back to their mushy doting parents."
Caitlyn's eye hardens just that ever so slightly—not in judgment but in seriousness. Not demanding but asking. She doesn't need to put it into words for Vi to understand. It's equal parts wonderful and frustrating because Caitlyn knows that she knows.
"Jinx was different. I wouldn't choose differently but it wasn't my choice. It was never my choice."
Vi does her very best to not crack a joke because although old habits die hard, she's had decades now to know that she's safe, that this is safe, that they are a them and that means something. It means so much.
"I'm happy," she says. "You know that."
Caitlyn smiles. "I do."
"Fuck the Ferros kid," Vi says. "He wasn't chosen for competency."
"No," Caitlyn snorts. "Most certainly not."
"Besides, you were right."
Caitlyn's eye stills on her.
"We haven't fixed everything," Vi says, "and I don't know if we can fix everything, but I don't think that matters when so much is different now in ways I could have only dreamt of when I was a kid." She pulls their hands to her lips. "And that's thanks to you."
Caitlyn's mouth opens, but then it shuts and this too, this too is growth that stirs Vi's heart so warm and holds it so tender. She squeezes Caitlyn's hand, rougher and calloused but no less skillful than in their youth, richer with the experience of the decades they've spent together.
"I don't think I ever wanted children," Caitlyn says.
The breath that escapes is low and long, audible in a sigh.
"I spent so much of my youth fighting to escape my cage," she says. "It seemed incongruous to want to subject someone else to that." Her smile grows wry. "Then there was just too much to do and it never felt right."
Vi finds her fingers being squeezed back, the gently brush of Caitlyn's thumb on her hand.
"I think we'd have managed it if we really wanted it," Caitlyn says, "but we didn't."
"We didn't," Vi says. "And I don't, since you're asking. I'm looking forward to a quiet retirement."
Caitlyn's eye flicks to hers. "You're not," she says.
"Fine," grumbles Vi. "I'm not looking forward to retirement at all. I'm going to be all crotchety when you have to leave our bed for work and I don't get to go with you."
"What?"
"What what?"
"We're retiring together," Caitlyn says like she would say 'the sky is blue' and 'water is wet'. "I'm most certainly not leaving the bed to go to work without dragging you with me."
"You would lie to me with your whole chest," Vi chuckles, "when you're the night owl of us two? When you're the one who's always going 'five more minutes' and 'you're so cruel, let me rest' and—"
Caitlyn scowls. There is no heat behind it whatsoever and Vi has promised this over and over again with every beat of her heart but she would follow this woman to the ends of the earth if only she asked.