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There was blood in her mouth. Copper. Thick. Hot.
Caitlyn tasted it before she felt it, before her mind even caught up to what her body had become. It was everywhere, coating her tongue, bubbling in her throat. When she tried to breathe, it clawed its way up into her nose. Her lips parted, but all that came out was a wet rasp.
Something was wrong with her left eye. No, not wrong, gone. The world was sliced in half. Black on one side, pain on the other. And there was pain. Not the sharp kind that made you scream, she’d passed that stage already. This was the quiet kind. The kind that burrowed deep, that melted into your bones and made them ache like they didn’t belong to you anymore.
Her body felt cold. Not from the outside. From within.
I’m dying.
The thought didn’t come with panic. It floated gently into her mind, as if settling itself among the wreckage of a thousand others. Consciousness flickered in and out like a guttering flame on a rainy street. Every time she blinked, she wasn't sure if she'd open her eye again.
She blinked now. Just the one.
The sky above was blackened with smoke. Somewhere in the distance, screams were fading. Rubble shifted. Metal creaked. She heard crying, not her own. A woman’s. Close, but... blurred. Caitlyn couldn't turn her head. Couldn’t tell who it was. Her vision swam, cracked at the edges like glass under pressure.
Mel? Maybe. Someone was kneeling, not too far away. Golden armor. Blood on their hands. But her eye couldn’t quite pull the scene together. Just broken frames, flickering in and out of memory like a reel too warped to play.
Her hand twitched against the stone floor. Wet. Sticky. She tried to curl her fingers. They didn’t listen.
Her gut was on fire. Torn open. Something vital. She could feel it, every throb spreading like ink in water. She deserved that pain. She did. She deserved it all.
After what she’d done.
After everything she’d let happen.
Under Ambessa’s rule, she’d been quiet. Obedient. A sharp blade in a dirty hand. And it didn’t matter that she told herself it was to protect people, to buy time, to navigate from within. She had followed. She had obeyed.
And people had died because of it.
So this was right, wasn’t it? This pain. This cold. This quiet descent into nothingness.
This was justice.
But gods, she was still so scared.
Not of the dying. No. She could take the dying. She’d wanted it enough of it to understand its shape. But it was what came after that terrified her, what she would leave behind.
Her father. Alone in a mansion that no longer felt like home. He’d lost his wife. Now, his daughter. She’d be another ghost for him to sit with over cold tea. No one left to carry the family name but the bitter taste of it.
Jayce. Poor Jayce. Brilliant, broken Jayce. She’d been angry at him for so long, for how he shut her out, for how progress had dragged him so far he forgot to look back. But in these moments, all of that anger melted. What would he do now? Would he even know she was gone? Would it matter to him?
And Vi.
Oh. Vi.
That name hit her harder than the wound in her stomach.
She wanted to cry, but her body refused. She was too far gone for that now.
Would she know? Would someone tell her? Or would she find Caitlyn’s body among the rubble like just another casualty of war?
Caitlyn’s breath hitched sharp and shallow. She was so afraid of becoming a memory. Of becoming something Vi had to push down, lock away, pretend didn’t ache every time it rose to the surface. Another weight on her shoulders. Another reason not to sleep at night. She’d seen how Vi carried grief. How it turned into a blade. She didn’t want to be another thing that cut her. She loved her too much for that.
Love.
That word came softly.
Like a bell in a church far away.
I love her.
The realization didn’t strike her. It didn’t come with thunder or a gasp. It settled. Like something old and familiar. Something that had always been there, just unspoken. Like sunlight through stained glass; beautiful, fractured, and real.
I love her. God, I love her.
How had she not said it? How had she waited?
There were a thousand kisses she’d left for latee, a thousand nights she could’ve spent curled into Vi’s arms, a thousand mornings where she could have whispered that love into the hollow of her throat, where Vi would’ve held her tighter and smiled that half-smile that meant safety.
She should’ve crawled into that prison cell and never left. She should’ve never let anything, anyone, pull her away. Not politics, not orders, not even family.
I should’ve told her. I should’ve told her I love her.
Her heartbeat was slowing. Distant now. Her body was far away, like she was watching herself from above. The world narrowed to one eye, half the light, half the sound, and all of the ache.
Darkness closed in again.
But somewhere, buried beneath the pain and the failure and the blood, there was a thought. Fragile. Golden. Clinging like a thread that hadn’t yet snapped:
If she’s alive... I want her to know.
Not for her own closure. Not for her own peace. But because Vi deserved to know she’s loved, she's seen, she's wanted. And Caitlyn, even dying, couldn't imagine leaving before Vi knew that. If only the words would reach her…
☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ
The world was quiet now.
Not peaceful, just empty. The kind of silence that only follows screaming.
Vi lay sprawled across the fractured skeleton of the Hexgate bridge, the metal beneath her groaning like it might give out at any second, a twisted mess of broken girders and scorched circuitry. The battle was over, hell, the war was over. But all she could hear was her own breath.
Ragged. Shallow. Unwanted.
Her right arm was limp, bent at an angle that it shouldn’t be. She didn’t look at it, didn’t care enough to. Pain bloomed there, hot and sharp, but it felt like background noise, like an afterthought. Her whole body hurt; her ribs, her back, her spine… but none of it mattered.
Because her heart was gone.
Ripped out. Torn loose. Taken with them. With her.
With Jinx. With… Powder.
She had screamed when they fell. Ripped her throat apart with it. Her voice was gone now, hollowed into silence. There were no tears left, not even sobs, just the ghost of them, the way her body still shook even though there was nothing left to give.
She stared down into the chasm where the metals collapsed, the smoking void where her sister and her dad had vanished into light and fire.
It happened again. Again, she’d lost them. Again.
First, that night from years ago that still set her spine on fire. Then months ago, when she found Powder but her eyes stopped being familiar. Then in the undercity, while Caitlyn's screams played the role of the background voice and all they built collapsed like the Council Building. And now here. Always here. Always in battle. Always in the moment when it mattered most.
Every time she tried to pull her back, something tore them apart. No matter how fast she ran. No matter how hard she fought. No matter how much she loved her… it was never enough.
She buried her face in her good arm, chest pressing against the sharp edge of a beam. She didn’t care if it cut her. She wanted it to.
I tried.
The words echoed in her skull. I tried, I tried, I tried.
But trying never saved anyone.
“Why…” Her voice cracked, barely more than a whisper, scraped raw and useless. “Why the hell does it always end like this?”
There was no answer. Only the creak of breaking metal, the wind that smelled of smoke and ozone and death. Her body felt like it was being held together by regret alone. Every scar, every fracture… it all led here. To this one broken moment.
She could still see Powder’s eyes before the fall. That brief flicker. Not Jinx, her. The girl Vi had carried on her back through the Lanes, the girl with the laugh that never felt heavy.
She’d seen her again, right before she lost her, that was the cruelest part.
The city was quiet now, the gates were crumbling around her, but it felt far away. Distant like she was watching the ruins of someone else’s life. She tried to move, but her body screamed at her. Her arm was useless, her knees refused to lock. She just slumped again, cheek pressed to rusted steel, eyes fluttering shut.
She could still feel the weight of Jinx in her arms. That final reach, that desperate, stupid lunge to catch her. To hold on. To not fail again. But she’d failed. Of course she had. That’s all she ever did.
Every time she tried to make something right, it bled into something worse. Every time she chose love, it turned to war. She didn’t know who she was anymore.
Not a sister, not a daughter, not a hero. Not anything that mattered.
Her chest felt tight, not from the injuries but from the weight. The unbearable pressure of loss. Not just Jinx or Vander. But something deeper, like the very idea of hope had been cut from her with that fall. She was so goddamn tired. So tired of chasing ghosts, so tired of trying to hold broken pieces together, so tired of always being too late…
Time didn’t move.
Vi didn’t know how long she lay there. Her cheek against the cold metal, her blood drying on her skin like mud, her bones screaming beneath the silence. Maybe it had been minutes, maybe hours. The smoke in the air stung her eyes but she didn’t blink it away. She welcomed the burn, every sensation anchored her to the wreckage, to the moment, to the pain that said she was still here even though everything else was gone.
So many names lived inside her. So many memories, burned now into echoes. They always slipped through her fingers like smoke no matter how tightly she gripped. A part of her wanted to lie there forever. Let the bridge fall beneath her, let it end. What was left anyway? Who did she have? Who did she trust?
Who would call her Vi and not mean violence?
“Vi!”
The voice pierced through the fog like a wire dragged across her nerves. Footsteps. Boots hitting metal fast and desperate.
“Vi! Vi!”
She blinked. A shadow dropped beside her, shoulder slamming hard into the ground as knees scraped and arms wrapped around her.
Ekko.
His face was cut and bleeding, lip split, one eye blackened. His hoverboard was nowhere in sight, maybe wrecked, maybe abandoned. But he was here, breathless and raw and alive. He reached under her arms, trying to sit her up, his fingers gentle but shaking. His hands smelled like smoke and metal and blood. Vi barely registered the shift. Her body was a dead weight, but he hauled her up anyway. Chest to chest, eye to eye.
He didn’t ask but his eyes did. They screamed the question. Where are they? And she couldn’t lie. Her mouth opened, her throat cracked.
“They’re gone,” she choked. A single, wet rasp. Not even a whisper. “They’re… gone.”
Ekko froze. His hands clenched on her arms. Not hard. Just… tight. He didn’t say it, not out loud. But his breath hitched. His eyes shuttered.
Gone.
A jagged breath escaped from Vi’s chest like something tearing loose. She folded forward, fell into Ekko’s shoulder. Her good arm wrapped around him before she even thought about it. He caught her, held her tight. They hadn’t hugged like this in years. Not since they were kids, hiding from enforcers in dead ends and sewer tunnels. Back when their biggest fear was being separated during curfew. Back when they still had something to go home to.
Now they were the only ones left. Just her and Ekko. Brother and sister, by bond if not by blood.
His arms around her were strong. Steady. And shaking. Vi trembled, head buried into his collarbone. Her breath caught. Sobbed once, a cracked, hopeless sound that made Ekko flinch and then again. She didn’t care if it hurt. Didn’t care if her ribs screamed or if her arm throbbed or if the world was burning down around her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I tried. I tried so hard…”
“I know,” Ekko said, barely above a breath. “I know you did.”
His voice was thick like it had to push through tears that he wouldn’t let fall. She felt them, still, not on her own face, but in him. He was grieving too, she could feel it. But for once, it was him being strong for her. Vi gripped him tighter. Like he might disappear too if she didn’t.
“I lost everyone,” she whispered into his shoulder. “Everyone I love. Everyone…”
Her chest shuddered again. It hurt to speak. Every word was a fracture. So cruel. That life could keep taking. That all her fighting, all her blood, all her sacrifices meant nothing. Her fists clenched, nails dug into Ekko’s back. She wanted to scream again, but the silence had settled like a stone in her throat.
Everyone I love...
No.
No.
Her mind pulled against the tide. Something bright. Something stubborn.
A face. A voice. A laugh. Eyes like sapphire fire, steady even when everything else trembled.
The name hit her like a breath.
“I…” Her mouth moved before the thought fully landed. “I didn’t lose everyone.” Ekko stirred, pulling back just enough to see her face. “I didn’t,” Her eye widened, breath hitching. “I still have her.” The air rushed back into her lungs. Hope. Burning, terrible hope. “Cait.”
Ekko’s expression shifted to confusion, then realization, then fear.
“Where is she?” Vi grabbed his jacket. “Do you know where she is?!”
“I… I don’t know,” Ekko said, his own voice faltering. “She was fighting with–”
“Take me to her.” Vi’s voice rose, not in anger but terror. “Please. Please, Ekko, I have to get to her.” She started to stand, but her legs buckled. Ekko caught her again, held her steady.
“I have to find her. I have to…” Her words tumbled over each other, fractured and frantic. “She could be hurt, she… she might be… I can’t lose her too, I can’t, Ekko. please…” Her grip was iron on his shoulders now, shaking him as her desperation overtook her grief. Every beat of her heart screamed go, go, go.
Ekko swallowed hard, nodding. “I’ll take you,” he said, steady this time. “Hold on.”
He didn’t say what they were both thinking, that Caitlyn might already be gone. That this could be another corpse waiting for them in the rubble. But Vi didn’t let herself think it, she couldn’t. Because if she lost Caitlyn… If she lost the one person who saw her, truly saw her… If she lost the only softness left in this brutal, godless world… There’d be nothing left.
Ekko helped her to her feet. She winced, almost folded again, but clung to him like a lifeline. His charred and battered hoverboard, Vi realized, waited just beyond the platform’s edge. The two of them, what was left of the family, climbed aboard. The air howled around them and they flew, toward what was left.
Toward hope or heartbreak.
The wind roared in her ears, tearing past her like it wanted to rip her open from the outside in, but Vi didn’t flinch, didn’t register the way the cold gnawed at her broken skin or how the ache in her shoulder had spread into something sharp and jagged that clung to every breath she took, because her eyes were locked ahead, her arms clinging to Ekko’s shoulders like anchors, and her mind was a single, blinding word pulsing like a drumbeat between her temples. Caitlyn Caitlyn Caitlyn…
The city was unrecognizable now: streets cracked open, buildings split in half like broken bones, flames still licking at the bones of structures that once housed futures and families and all the pointless promises of progress. And beneath them, littering the battlefield in crooked lines and mangled clusters, were the bodies of the fallen, some still twitching, some already still, and Vi didn’t let herself look at any of them too closely, didn’t let herself see, because to look too long meant wondering if one of them was—
No.
No.
She couldn’t go there, couldn’t think about what it would mean if Caitlyn had fallen somewhere amidst all of this, alone, bleeding, broken, gone because the second that thought was allowed to bloom, even a little, it would root itself too deep and pull her under. So she didn’t think. Not about anything except her.
Not about the way her hands trembled even though they’d broken knuckles more times than she could count. Not about how her heart felt like it was trying to claw its way out of her chest, screaming something her mouth couldn’t shape.
Not about how it always ended like this.
Vi kept her head down against Ekko’s shoulder, feeling the rapid pulse beneath his skin as he guided the hoverboard through smoke and wreckage and she tried to hold herself together with the memory of Caitlyn’s voice, the sound of it when she said her name like it was something worth softening for, or the way her eyes had looked the morning just before the fighting, before everything went down, when the silence between them was louder than gunfire and Vi had almost said something she was too scared to let herself believe.
And then she saw it.
At first, it didn’t look like anything, just a shape, another figure lost in the ruin, too still to be living and too familiar to be anyone else but her heart recognized it before her mind could and suddenly the breath in her lungs turned to ice and her stomach dropped like the bridge beneath her had vanished.
Hair. Navy, almost black in some parts. Coiled, tangled, half-crusted in soot and blood and lying spread across the concrete like ink spilled on canvas.
“Caitlyn!”
Her voice shattered the sky, it tore through the smoke, through the silence, through her and she didn’t recognize the sound of it, didn’t know she could still scream like that, not after everything she’d lost, not after losing her sister, her father, her whole damn world.
But this? This was the scream she wouldn’t survive if she had to do it again.
Ekko turned hard, the hoverboard lurching beneath them as they cut through the air like a blade, and Vi could barely keep herself upright, her body locked and braced like something had seized every nerve and refused to let go because she wasn’t ready, she wasn’t ready, she wasn’t… Not Caitlyn, please, not her.
☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ
She couldn’t feel her hands anymore.
That was the first thing she noticed or maybe the last, as her body sank heavier into the ground beneath her, the heat in her limbs traded for something slow and wet and cold, a kind of cold that didn’t shiver but settled, coiling around her spine like sleep. The pain was still there but duller now, deeper, a bloom in her stomach that pulsed with every sluggish beat of her heart, each one slower than the last, echoing up into her ribs like a drum sounding the end of something she didn’t want to name.
And her eye, her one remaining eye, could barely hold focus, couldn’t make sense of the fractured light above her, the shadows moving like ghosts in a storm, too far away to be real, too quiet to save her. Her mouth tasted like copper. Her breath was thin and wet and fragile. Her fingers twitched once and didn’t try again.
And yet… her mind raced. It wouldn’t stop. Because she hadn’t said it, not out loud, not when she had time, not when it could’ve changed everything… And now it was too late, now the words sat like broken glass behind her teeth, and she wanted to scream them out into the sky but her voice wouldn’t rise, her throat too dry, too raw, her lungs fluttering like paper.
I love you.
She should’ve said it. Should’ve screamed it the day they stayed in the alley. Should’ve whispered it in the prison cell. Should’ve sobbed it into her skin that night they spent lying side by side in the soft light of dawn, too afraid to say anything real in case it cracked the fragile quiet between them. She should’ve told her every day, a thousand times, in a thousand ways. And now she was going to die here. Alone. And Vi would never know.
But then… Her name with Vi’s voice. Not imagined, not a trick of her memory. A scream, wild and ragged and alive, ripped through the smoke like thunder. Her name.
“Caitlyn!”
And everything inside her jolted, heart slamming back into motion, muscles clenching, panic slicing through her like lightning because if Vi was here, if she was close, if she was seeing her like this, then it was real, and she was dying, and Vi had to watch it happen.
No. No no no no not like this…
She tried to move, but her body wouldn’t answer. Tried to speak, but only a whine filled her mouth. She couldn’t lift her head, couldn’t reach out, couldn’t call her name back. And all that filled her was urgency, not to be saved, not even to survive but to tell her, to tell her, because if she was going to die, then Vi had to know.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
The words screamed behind her eyes. Her lips parted again, useless.
Please, let me say it.
Please.
But everything around her blurred, the light dimmed. And as the last strength bled out of her body, Caitlyn held on with the last shreds of her soul, begging the universe for one more second.
Just enough time to speak her truth. Just enough time to say Vi’s name.
☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ
The second Vi saw her, really saw her, lying there like a fallen statue, half-covered in blood and ash… her breath caught so violently in her throat that it felt like something inside her had snapped, like a thread she’d been holding too tightly for too long had finally given way, and she didn’t think, didn’t speak, didn’t even feel herself move as she launched off the hoverboard before Ekko could even react, her boots slamming into the fractured ground with a jolt that rattled through every bone she had left intact.
She hit the stone running.
Didn’t care that the impact tore through her probably already broken shoulder, didn’t care that her legs nearly buckled from the pain screaming through her body, didn’t care that Ekko shouted after her, his voice a flicker behind the deafening thunder of her heartbeat. All she could see was Caitlyn. All she could hear was her name in her head, over and over like a chant, like a war cry, like a prayer.
Caitlyn, Caitlyn, Caitlyn…
The closer she got, the harder it became to keep herself moving, not because she didn’t want to, but because every step forward peeled back another layer of the horror. The ruin of Caitlyn’s uniform, the blood soaking her midsection and spreading in a slow, terrible halo beneath her, the way her left eye was swollen shut and dark with blood, too much blood, and the other looked up with a distant, flickering awareness like a flame that had been burning too long. Her breath turned to glass in her throat. Her knees gave out before she even reached her.
She fell to the ground with a grunt, arms shaking so violently she had to throw herself forward onto her hands just to keep from collapsing outright, and then she was crawling, dragging herself across broken rock and blood-slick dust with a desperation so animal it made her ribs ache from the strain of it, her good hand scraping across the stone until her fingers found Caitlyn’s sleeve, her forearm, her, and then she was there.
She pulled her in like something sacred. Gathered her up with the care of someone who knew this might be the last time. Caitlyn’s body folded into hers like a question half-answered, like something too fragile to touch but too beloved not to hold, and Vi cradled her against her chest, one arm locking around her back while the other slid beneath her neck, lifting her head like a newborn's, supporting it, because Caitlyn couldn’t hold it up herself anymore and Vi couldn’t let it fall, not when she was still here, still breathing, still hers.
Her forehead pressed against Caitlyn’s temple, and for a long second, Vi didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak, because the sob that wrenched from her chest was too big, too raw, too full of everything that had ever mattered and everything that was slipping away.
“Stay with me,” she whispered, voice cracking like thin ice beneath heavy boots, her mouth brushing against Caitlyn’s hair. “Please, Cupcake, please.”
Caitlyn stirred faintly in her arms, the smallest twitch, the faintest gasp, and Vi sobbed again, this time into her skin, into the crown of her head where the curls were soaked with sweat and blood and soot.
“You’re okay,” she lied, because she had to, because if she didn’t say it out loud she might believe the opposite. “You’re okay, you’re gonna be okay, just… just stay awake, keep looking at me.”
She pulled back just enough to look down at her, brushing back blood-matted strands of hair from Caitlyn’s face with trembling fingers, her hand cupping the side of her jaw so gently, like she was afraid to break what was already broken and she saw it, saw that beautiful blue eye still open, barely, still looking at her like she was something worth fighting to come back to.
“You’re here,” Vi whispered, voice breaking again, “Gods, Cait, you’re here, I thought… I thought I was too late,”
Caitlyn tried to speak. Her lips parted, dry and trembling, and for a moment Vi thought she might hear her voice, but all that came out was a broken whimper, a breath shaped like her name.
“Violet.”
Her fingers twitched against Vi’s chest; so light, so weak, but there, trying, gripping and Vi grabbed them in her good hand, lacing their fingers together as if that could hold her in place, as if she could bind her to the world through sheer will and desperation.
“I’m here,” Vi said quickly, nodding, her forehead falling to rest against Caitlyn’s again. “I’m right here, baby, I’m here, I’ve got you, I’ve got you just stay with me, please don’t go quiet on me now, don’t do that, you don’t get to go out like this, not without me.”
Her tears were hot and relentless, trailing down her face and dripping onto Caitlyn’s skin, and her voice wavered as she tried to keep talking, tried to fill the silence with anything other than goodbye.
“Talk to me,” she begged, “Please, talk to me, yell at me, say anything, I don’t care, just say something…”
And Caitlyn tried. God, she tried.
She fought the haze pulling at her, fought the weakness in her lungs and the tremor in her blood and the darkness blooming in the corners of her vision, because Vi was here, because she made it, because Caitlyn couldn’t die now, wouldn’t, not when the one thing she’d needed was finally in her arms, not when the love she’d swallowed and buried and bit down for years was right here, alive and breathing and weeping for her.
Her mouth moved again.
Her throat strained, barely able to gather the air.
“I…”
That was all she could say, but it was everything, because it was her love and her fear and her fight wrapped into a single, broken sound, and her fingers curled just a little tighter around Vi’s hand, like she was tethering herself to her, like she was choosing her instead of the dark. She wanted to say it, wanted to speak the words that had lived inside her for too long, wanted to look into Vi’s eyes and tell her she was the only thing that mattered, the only thing that ever had, wanted to tell her that she was sorry for every wasted second and every distance she hadn’t closed sooner. But her lips only shaped it without sound.
I love you.
She tried again, mouth open.
I love you.
Her chest hitched with effort.
Please understand. Please hear me.
“Vi,” she whispered one last time, barely a breath.
And even though her body trembled and her pulse faded and the world blurred and tilted beneath her, Caitlyn clung to the feeling of Vi’s arms around her, the warmth of her chest, the rhythm of her heartbeat, the sound of her voice repeating her name like a mantra, like an anchor.
She would hold on for her as long as she could.
☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ☆ミ
The world narrowed to the shape of her arms.
Vi didn’t hear Ekko calling her name from behind. Didn’t feel the shifting wind or the sound of approaching boots in the distance. Didn’t notice the glow of flickering sirens starting to cast long shadows across the rubble like the city was finally waking up to its own grief.
All she knew was the weight of Caitlyn’s body in her arms and the way that weight wasn’t nearly enough.
It wasn’t the heaviness that broke her it was how light she felt. How insubstantial. As if she were already halfway gone, already fading, and Vi couldn’t do a damn thing to anchor her down, not even with both arms around her, not even with her breath in her ear, not even with her soul screaming to the universe take me instead. She whispered her name again, then again, until the syllables broke apart.
“Cait… Caitlyn baby, please,”
Her fingers cupped the back of her head again, too gently, brushing her hair away from her face like it mattered, like that small act of care could keep death at bay for another moment. Her thumb traced the blood-smeared line of her cheekbone, her jaw, her mouth.
And then Caitlyn stirred. Vi froze every breath, every muscle.
She felt the movement before she saw it: a slight shifting in her chest, a tremble in her fingers, a twitch of her brow. The eye that was still intact blinked slowly, like lifting a mountain, and her mouth moved again, cracked lips parting, breath shallow and wet and broken.
“I’m okay,” Caitlyn whispered.
A lie. And Vi had never loved her more for it.
She let out a sob that almost became a laugh, almost, but it caught in her throat and turned to something thick and trembling, something that ached.
“No, you’re not,” she whispered, forehead pressed to hers, shaking her head, “but you will be. You'll be more than okay, Cupcake.”
Then Caitlyn’s eyes searched for hers, slow and struggling but certain, and Vi held her breath, because something in that single, blood-rimmed look said this is it, said watch me now, said listen, and Vi swore she’d never looked harder at anything in her life.
“I love you,” Caitlyn whispered.
And it didn’t come out strong. It didn’t need to. The words were frayed, almost invisible, but they were real, and they were hers, and Vi felt them like a blade through her ribs. She closed her eyes, let them fall. Not from weakness, from reverence.
“I love you too,” she said, her voice breaking like waves on rock. “Gods, Cait… I love you so much. I should’ve said it, every damn day I should’ve—”
She couldn’t finish because saying it meant it might be the last time. And that was too much.
Caitlyn’s lips curved, just barely. Not a smile, but something close, something like peace, and for one trembling second Vi thought she’d done it, thought that was enough to hold her here, thought maybe this could still be okay, even if they’d bled to get to this point. But Caitlyn’s body slumped a little more in her arms. The light in her eye flickered.
And then she was slipping again, head tilting toward Vi’s shoulder, lashes falling like the final line in a poem that couldn’t be rewritten.
“No, no, no. Cait!”
Vi shook her lightly, gently, fear like ice clawing its way back into her chest, but Caitlyn was unresponsive now, her breath ragged and distant, her fingers no longer gripping Vi’s, just resting there like an afterthought.
But she was still breathing. Still breathing. Vi pressed her hand against her sternum, felt the faint rise and fall, shallow and inconsistent but there, and she held it like a promise, like the final thread connecting them across the void.
She heard the outside voices then, boots, a shout.
“Over here! Medic! We’ve got the Commander alive!”
Vi didn’t lift her head, didn’t loosen her hold, not even when Ekko dropped to his knees beside her, face pale and eyes wide and mouth moving but words not reaching. She held Caitlyn like something precious, something irreplaceable, arms locked around her with the certainty of someone who’d spent her whole life losing things and finally, finally, had something to fight for again. And she wouldn’t let go.
Even when the medics arrived. Even when they tried to gently pull Caitlyn from her. Even when they promised she was still breathing, that they could save her, that the worst might be over.
Vi only loosened her grip when they promised she could ride with her. That she wouldn’t be left behind. She held her hand the whole way, fingers laced tight. Whispered her name through the shaking of the sirens and the rush of wind and the screaming, blinking lights of the hospital wing opening like a mouth ready to swallow them both. Vi didn’t cry again, not yet.
She’d already given the tears. Now, she was giving her heart.
And Caitlyn… Caitlyn would have to come back and take it.