Chapter Text
“Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts
who refuse to rest in their graves
until their stories are told.”
— Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery
Many years ago, two daughters came into Caitlyn and Vi’s lives: Victoria and Ophelia Kiramman. To the rest of the world, they claimed the girls were adopted. But only those closest to them knew the truth: the girls were their biological children, created with the help of an alchemist who had long ago been expelled from the Academy.
Even they no longer fully understood how they had once dared to do it. At first, they both had doubts. Everything felt more like a dangerous experiment than the creation of a family. But years later, neither of them regretted their choice even once.
More than twelve years had passed since the war in Piltover, and the sisters were already around ten. They grew up healthy, intelligent, and happy. Caitlyn would have been completely happy too, if not for one thing.
Victoria Kiramman took after Vi—boasting long red hair, freckles, and a confident gaze—but her personality was the spitting image of Caitlyn: poised, strong-willed, disciplined, and aristocratically composed.
Ophelia, on the other hand, looked almost exactly like Cassandra Kiramman as a child - Caitlyn's mother. But her character... oh, her character was completely different: free-spirited, creative, sharp-tongued, and painfully inventive.
“What are you doing, Ophelia?” Caitlyn entered her room and froze. She could hardly believe what she was seeing.
"Mom, I'm busy!" Ophelia protested, turning something incomprehensible in her hands.
"You're four years old. How can you be busy? And what is all this?" Caitlyn gestured at the mechanisms scattered across the carpet.
"I want to understand how it all works."
"Don't you have anything else to do?"
"Nope."
"Go play with Vicky."
"I don't want to, Mom. This is more interesting."
Caitlyn still remembered how Ophelia, at only four years old, had taken apart almost every piece of technology in the house, trying to understand how everything worked from the inside. But she did not stop there. Whenever the adults were about to throw something away, Ophelia took it for herself and tried to fix it. At six, she managed to repair Cassandra's old clock, which Tobias had not dared to give even to a master repairman for years.
And that was only the beginning. As soon as she learned to read, Ophelia went through everything in the family library that had anything to do with engineering or mechanics. The family had enough money to invite the best teachers in Piltover, and they helped the girl develop her talent. But the older she became, the more strongly she showed traits that, in Caitlyn's mind, simply should not have been there. And that worried Caitlyn most of all.
She still remembered the first time she took Ophelia to the shooting range. Caitlyn had expected talent - after all, she herself had been a better shot than many Enforcers even as a child - but the way Ophelia felt the weapon from the very first try frightened even her.
Especially compared to Victoria, who had never shown anything like it, even after going there ten times.
Caitlyn knew perfectly well that Vi and Jinx had been sisters, but there were too many similarities. She could not understand how such a thing was even possible. At night, she lay awake and kept returning in her thoughts to the day Singed first offered them the impossible.
***
Six months after the war, Vi and Caitlyn finally came to Singed’s laboratory. They knew exactly who had created Shimmer and who had turned Vander into a monster. Neither of them intended to let him get away with it. They had come to send him to Stillwater and leave him there to rot for the rest of his life.
"You can send me to a cell. I understand that perfectly," he said, slowly raising his hands. "But surely you understand that I would be far more useful to you outside one."
"What are you getting at?" Caitlyn asked harshly.
"Caitlyn Kiramman. Sheriff of Piltover. Head of House Kiramman..." He shifted his gaze to Vi, and a faint trace of mockery entered his voice. "And her unusual companion."
His tone made it clear that he knew more than they would have liked. Then, as if the conversation had already stopped being dangerous, he calmly turned his back on them, pulled out a chair, and sat down, adjusting the scarf that hid his burns.
"I knew you would come to see me sooner or later. So I prepared an offer for you."
"Shut up, bastard!" Vi had already taken a step forward, but Caitlyn stopped her with one hand. "You're going to stand trial for everything you've done!"
"For what, exactly?" Singed asked calmly.
"Stop playing games with us." Caitlyn raised her rifle, aiming at the back of his head.
"You have no evidence."
"You created Shimmer. You experimented on people."
"Which people?" he countered. "And which of them will testify? As for Shimmer, I created the formula and sold it to Silco many years ago. I did not run his factories, I did not give orders to his people, and I did not control what he turned Zaun into."
"Convenient, when all the witnesses are dead," Vi hissed. She wanted to kill him on the spot and could barely hold herself back.
"You can lock me in a cell and call it justice. But admit it, Piltover would benefit more if a scientist like me worked for you," he said carefully, looking at the women with a sly expression.
"You think that after everything you've done, we'll just let you walk free?!" Vi shouted.
"Nothing prevents you from placing guards around me and watching everything I do. Believe me, I have no intention of running. In exchange, I am ready to work for you. Especially since I am the one person who can give you what no one else can."
"And what would that be?"
"Cait?" Vi whispered in surprise, looking at her partner.
"Let him speak. I want to hear it."
"An heir," Singed said calmly.
The women stared at him in confusion.
"Wh-what?" Vi breathed, shocked.
"An heir to House Kiramman. You understand it yourself, Miss Kiramman. Great houses do not survive on portraits and family archives. Sooner or later, you will need someone to whom you can pass your name. But by the laws of nature, you and your companion will remain without shared descendants."
His words struck Caitlyn harder than she wanted to show. That thought had been tormenting her for more than half a year. She loved Vi and wanted to spend the rest of her life with her. But the thought that her house and her bloodline might end with her slowly ate at her from the inside. At night, she could not sleep as she tried to understand what to do and how to solve it. She felt no attraction to men, but she wanted to raise her own children. Biological children. And by the laws of nature, she could not have children with Vi. That hurt her deeply.
"Do you even hear what you're saying?" Vi's face had almost turned the same color as her hair from anger. But Caitlyn, it seemed, was thinking differently.
"Go on."
"An adopted child will give you a family. A donor will give you an heir. But neither will give you a child who carries the blood of both of you."
"You're insane!" Vi snapped.
"Perhaps. But the impossible is usually created by people like that. And I would not offer this if I were not certain I could do it."
"And what do you want in return?" Caitlyn asked slowly.
The offer sounded too tempting to simply refuse.
"Cait, are you serious?" Vi looked at her as if she no longer recognized her.
"I know you will not give me complete freedom. I am not asking for it. I am asking for the chance to continue my work. Give me a laboratory under supervision. Put guards on me. Limit my access to substances and instruments. Forbid any experiments without your permission. Call it a prison, if that makes you feel safer. In exchange, I will work for Piltover. I will give you everything I know about Shimmer and help fix the consequences of what I created. And if you want it, I will give you what no doctor can: your shared biological children."
Caitlyn was silent for too long. And for the first time in the entire conversation, Vi was not afraid of Singed. She was afraid that Caitlyn was actually considering it.
"Or you can imprison me and satisfy your desire for revenge," Singed added calmly.
"We will think about your offer," Caitlyn finally said. "But you will wait for our decision in a prison cell."
With that, the conversation was over.
Within a month, Singed had begun working under Piltover's strict supervision, dealing with the problems of people in Zaun who had been left sick by Shimmer. The decision, however, wasn't theirs to make—it belonged to the Council. Sevika supported it most of all: she insisted that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people needed help, and that Singed, as a doctor and as the creator of Shimmer, had a duty to help deal with the consequences of his own discoveries.
But for another year and a half, the offer of shared children did not leave Caitlyn's and Vi's minds. They spoke about it many times, and they fought more than once: about the danger, about the moral side, about how it would look to the public. Vi was strongly against it and had serious arguments. Caitlyn did not back down either. She insisted that it was the only way to have a child who carried both their blood.
They married and had a large wedding, but the conflict still returned to their daily life. Both of them had doubts. Both of them tried to find another way: to find someone more decent who could do the same thing. But every doctor and scientist in Piltover told them the same thing: "We understand what you want, but these are the laws of biology. We cannot do this. We do not have that knowledge." They went to everyone they could and slowly understood: only Singed could help them.
And that led them to another fight.
"I do not want just an heir. I want a child from you. If Singed is already under control and still works for Piltover, why should we refuse our only chance?"
"This is Singed, Cait. He created Shimmer. He worked for Silco. He turned my father into that... thing. And that thing killed my sister! How can I work with him after that?!"
"We are not forgiving him. We are using him. He has been under Piltover's control for a year and a half. He cannot take a single step without our knowledge."
"I'm not afraid for myself. I'm afraid for the child, Cait. What if something goes wrong? What if he makes a mistake? What if the child pays for the rest of their life because we wanted the impossible?"
"I do not want House Kiramman to be nothing but walls after me, Vi. I do not want to be the last. And I do not want you to be a mother only on paper."
Only after a year and a half did they finally agree. Not quickly, and not without fear, but they made the decision. The final argument in Caitlyn's favor was Tobias. He convinced Vi that, as a doctor, he would personally oversee Singed's work and monitor every stage of the process. In the end, that was exactly what happened.
***
Caitlyn was sure something had gone wrong, but she did not understand what. Was it normal that her child with Vi, a child who looked almost exactly like Cassandra, reminded her so strongly of Jinx - the person Caitlyn had spent years trying to forget like a nightmare?
At first, she decided it was only a coincidence. Jinx had been a talented engineer, after all, and Vi was her sister. That meant their child might have inherited that talent too.
But then Ophelia began to draw like Jinx.
That frightened Caitlyn most of all.
First, she asked her daughter where she had learned it. Caitlyn thought Vi must have told her about Jinx. But Ophelia answered that she simply liked those colors and that style. No one had taught her.
After that, Caitlyn could no longer ignore her suspicions.
Worst of all, neither Ophelia nor Victoria knew almost anything about Jinx. They had been told only one thing: Vi had once had a younger sister, but she had died in the war long ago.
The Kiramman household possessed a solemn reverence for the deceased. Every year, Cassandra's name was spoken in silence beside her portrait, fresh flowers, and short restrained speeches.
Vi also told her daughters about her family: about Felicia, Connol, Vander, Mylo, and Claggor. The girls knew every name.
But no one spoke about Jinx in that house. No one brought up the subject. No one said her name aloud. Caitlyn knew Vi had not told their daughters anything either. Otherwise, Caitlyn would have noticed.
Ophelia and Victoria knew almost nothing about Jinx: not her name, not what she had been like, not what she had done, not how she had died. The adults did not want to open that part of the past to them. It was as if several pages had been torn out of the book of their family history.
That was why Caitlyn could not share her suspicions with Vi. They had not spoken about Jinx for more than ten years. That left only one person she could talk to: the one who had helped them get their children.
***
Singed's laboratory.
"A pleasure to see you, Miss Kiramman. It has been a long time," Singed murmured, keeping his back turned toward her. A few meters away, two armed Enforcers in masks stood guard. They monitored his work every day.
"Leave," Caitlyn ordered.
The Enforcers nodded and left the room.
"How are your daughters?" Singed asked without turning around, once the officers had gone. "I assume you are here because of them."
"I want to know what you did."
"What are you referring to, Sheriff? Has something happened?"
"Yes."
"Do your daughters not resemble you?"
"They do."
"Then what troubles you?"
"One of them does not resemble Vi. Not in character. She is completely different. She is just like her sister... like Jinx. And I wanted to know whether that is normal."
"Vi and Jinx were biological sisters," he said at last. "They shared blood. Shared heredity. Some traits could appear in Vi's child even if Vi herself did not have them."
"That is what I thought at first too."
"Then what is the problem?"
Caitlyn pressed her lips together.
"There are too many similarities."
Singed slowly turned toward her.
"How many?"
"The engineering. The chaotic drawings. Her speech patterns. Even shooting. Ophelia does these things as if... as if they were already inside her from the beginning. I am an excellent shot, of course, but I never had that kind of talent. I learned through hard work."
"Talent sometimes skips a generation."
"Not like this."
Singed fell silent again. This time the pause lasted longer.
"Then I need to ask you one question, Miss Kiramman."
"What question?"
"On the day of the procedure... are you absolutely certain you did not touch anything inside my cryo-chamber?"
"I... I..."
The words died in Caitlyn's throat. A sudden, violent rush of memory flooded her mind, dragging her back to that afternoon. She remembered the hum of the brass condensers, the hissing green vapors of the cold storage unit, and the row of sealed glass vials glowing faintly in the dim light of his laboratory.
***
Singed's laboratory.
Nine years earlier.
"Explain to me again how this is going to work. In detail," Caitlyn demanded.
She, Vi, and Tobias stood in Singed's laboratory. The room was cramped, dimly lit, and looked more like a crypt for other people's mistakes than a place of science. Along the walls stood huge glass tanks filled with cloudy yellow-green liquid. Inside them floated deformed bodies, limbs, and creatures too wrong to tell at once whether they had ever been alive. Purple light from Shimmer broke through flasks and tubes, mixing with the cold green glow of chemicals. Jars, tools, notes, and old samples crowded the tables. The air smelled of metal and reagents.
Vi looked at Caitlyn again. She was nervous. It was not the blood or the procedure itself that frightened her. It was the fact that they were going to do this here, with him.
What they were about to do existed in a gray area of the law. Piltover had given them permission for an experiment, but the documents described everything too vaguely. Supposedly, it was research in reproductive medicine and artificial gestation. Nothing in the papers made it clear what the procedure was really meant to achieve. Formally, everything was arranged correctly: if anyone started an investigation, it would be difficult to accuse them of breaking the law. But a person reading those papers for the first time would never guess what result they truly wanted.
"It is simpler than it seems. To create a child, you need two sets of chromosomes. They do not have to come from a man and a woman. I will take cells from your blood, reprogram them into stem cells, and create a half-parental set from each. One will become the basis of the future egg cell. The second I will alter so the embryo accepts it as the missing side. After fusion, the embryo will spend its first days in a nutrient medium. Then it will be transferred into an incubation vessel, where it will mature to term. All I need from you is blood. I should also state this immediately: you can only have girls, because the Y chromosome required for a boy exists only in men."
"I didn't catch a single word of that," Vi said quietly.
"Is it correct?" Caitlyn looked at her father. Tobias was a doctor, and right now she needed to hear his confirmation.
"Yes," he said with a restrained nod.
"Good," Singed said, stepping back to his desk. "How many children do you want?"
"Two," Caitlyn answered. "Victoria and Ophelia Kiramman."
Singed wrote the girls' names on two test tube racks and then placed them on the top shelf of the refrigerator. After that, he took four empty glass vials.
"Which one of you will be first?"
"I will," Vi volunteered. Vi wanted to finish this as quickly as possible and leave before she did something she would regret. Her hatred for this man still boiled in her veins.
"Here. Sit down and roll up your sleeve. Keep your arm still," he said, pointing to the iron chair.
"Vi, I will step out for a moment. I need to speak with my father," Caitlyn said suddenly.
Vi nodded uncertainly. Caitlyn and Tobias went out into the corridor and closed the door behind them.
Vi did not want to be alone with Singed. Her anger at him was still too strong. She did not like this laboratory. She did not like the procedure. She did not like the fact that they had agreed to come here at all.
She had done it only for Caitlyn. Vi saw how deeply Caitlyn feared that House Kiramman would be left without heirs. And she did not want Caitlyn to one day regret the life she had chosen with her.
The scientist inserted the needle into her vein, and Vi's blood slowly flowed through the thin tube into the vial.
“How can you sleep peacefully after everything you’ve done?”
“I haven’t slept peacefully in a long time,” he replied dryly.
“Have you ever thought about them?.. About the people who died because of you?”
“More often than you think, Miss Vi.”
“My family died because of you,” she said, and the pain in her voice was impossible to miss.
“You have my sincere condolences for your loss. Vander was one of the strongest men I ever knew. And Jinx… she was too unique for our cities. As my mentor once said: those who shine brightest often burn fastest.”
“And you think I’m just supposed to forgive you after that?”
“I am not looking for excuses. Apologies will not bring back the dead. My offer is an opportunity to correct at least part of what I have done.”
Vi remained silent, continuing to stare at him intently.
"Hold this," he said, handing her the filled vial.
Vi took it, but her muscles were rigid with tension. Her fingers clutched the glass too tightly, driven by a surge of unspent adrenaline. The fragile vial gave way under the pressure. A sharp fracture raced down the side, and blood spilled—a dark, warm line painting her knuckles before dripping onto the stone floor.
"Shit," Vi hissed.
"Careful," Singed said calmly. "Glass does not tolerate force."
He took the second vial and filled it with her blood. Then he handed it to Vi. This time, she took the vial with her other hand and much more carefully, barely closing her fingers around it.
"Take a clean vial and pour part of the blood into it, or simply place the current sample inside the stasis chamber. Then I will divide it myself," Singed said and went toward the storage room to get a cloth. Before leaving, he stopped at the door. "Do not touch anything unnecessary, and do not move anything. This is a serious procedure."
Vi walked over to the table for a clean vial. She was about to divide the sample, as Singed had asked, but at the last moment she noticed a slight tremor in her fingers. Vi cursed under her breath and decided not to risk it. She was afraid of ruining something again.
She went to the refrigerator, opened the door, and looked at the top shelf. Four test tube racks stood on the top shelf. Two of them were labeled "Victoria" and "Ophelia." They were empty. In one unlabeled rack, standing in the middle, there was only one vial of someone's blood. The last rack held many other vials, also unlabeled.
Vi glanced over the refrigerator. It was filled with jars, flasks, and strange creatures floating in cloudy liquid. A shudder ran through her. She placed the vial of blood in the rack labeled "Victoria" and closed the door. She still did not understand how she had agreed to any of this.
When she turned around, she saw that Singed had already wiped the blood from the floor with a cloth and had gone to wash his hands.
By then, Caitlyn had returned.
"I'm going, Cait. I cannot stay here anymore," Vi said.
Caitlyn gave a short nod, and Vi headed for the exit. It disgusted her to remain in that laboratory even one minute longer.
"Well then, Miss Kiramman, sit down," Singed said, pointing to the iron chair.
Caitlyn sat and rolled up her sleeve. She maintained a mask of calm, but everything inside her coiled tight. She did not like this place. She did not like Singed. She did not like that, for the future of their family, they had to trust a person like him. She kept asking herself what her mother would have said about it. Would she regret this later? She was certain she would come here almost every day just to make sure everything was going as it should.
When the samples were collected, Singed handed her two vials.
"Place them on the top shelf, with Vi's samples. Do not move anything or touch anything unnecessary. Understood?"
"Yes," Caitlyn said with a nod.
She went to the refrigerator Singed had indicated and opened the door.
Four racks stood on the top shelf. In the rack labeled "Victoria," there was already a vial of blood. The rack labeled "Ophelia" was still empty. But beside it, in an unlabeled rack, stood one single unlabeled vial of blood.
Caitlyn frowned.
For a second, she remembered Singed's words: do not move anything. But then she decided it was obvious. Vi was supposed to have two vials. She had put one in the correct place, and the second, apparently through carelessness, she had left in the wrong rack.
"Vi... why now?" Caitlyn thought with irritation.
She refused to summon Singed back. She wouldn't swallow her pride and admit they had fumbled such a rudimentary step of the procedure. And she certainly did not want to bring Vi back into this laboratory.
Caitlyn took the vial from the unlabeled rack and moved it into the rack labeled "Ophelia." Then she placed her own two vials: one with Victoria's sample, and one with Ophelia's. After that, she closed the refrigerator.
"Finished?" Singed asked.
"Yes."
"In that case, I will expect you in a few days."
"Understood," Caitlyn answered without emotion and headed for the exit.
Vi and Tobias were already waiting for her outside.
"Vi, please be more careful next time," Caitlyn said.
Vi lowered her gaze to her fingers. There were still traces of blood on them from the broken vial.
"Yes. Sorry. I did not mean to."
***
Present day.
"So, Miss Kiramman? Did you touch anything in my refrigerator? Perhaps move something from one place to another?" Singed repeated calmly.
Caitlyn did not know what to say.
She remembered immediately that she had moved something. A small detail, one that had fallen out of her memory for nine long years, now rose before her so clearly that it felt as if it had happened yesterday. Her heart tightened painfully at the memory.
She had taken the vial from another rack. But at the time, she had been sure it was Vi's blood. She had been sure Vi had simply placed it in the wrong spot. That Vi had made a mistake, and Caitlyn had only put things in order, as she always did.
"I... no... I just..." she faltered, unable to find the words.
"I take it you did touch something after all."
Pride would not allow Caitlyn to admit her mistake out loud.
"Whose blood was there?" she asked. "On the top shelf. Whose?"
Singed was silent.
"Answer me!"
"You can look for yourself," he said calmly, nodding toward the refrigerator. "They are still there. If you turn the rack to face you, you will see the label."
Caitlyn held his gaze, her pulse hammering against her ribs as she forced her legs toward the stasis chamber. Her mind was a chaotic blank.
When she reached it, Caitlyn opened the door. On the top shelf, the vials of blood still stood there. In the same place as nine years ago.
She slowly took hold of the vial rack and turned it toward herself without lifting it from the shelf.
When she turned it fully, she saw the thing she feared most.
On the side of the rack, almost erased by time, a short label was still visible: "Jinx."
Caitlyn froze.
For a moment, the world around her seemed to disappear. She could no longer hear the hum of the refrigerator, the footsteps behind the door, or even her own breathing. Everything narrowed to the name on the side of the rack. The name of the person she had tried and failed to erase from her life and memory.
That day flashed before her eyes. Ophelia's empty rack. The lonely vial beside it. Her own hand reaching for the vial she should never have touched. Her own hand moving that blood into the rack with her daughter's name.
It was not Singed's mistake.
It was not Vi's mistake.
It was her own mistake.
Caitlyn slowly closed her eyes. For a moment, it felt as if she had forgotten how to breathe.
Ophelia. Her beloved child.
Not her daughter with Vi.
Her daughter with Jinx.