Chapter Text
How can you force someone to move forward, when you both know that each step they take is another moment closer to their life changing for the worse?
Vi doesn’t know. But she does it anyway.
When the rocket hit the Council tower, Caitlyn’s knees buckled and she fell. And she hasn’t truly gotten back up again. Now numb to the world, Caitlyn is limp and pliant as Vi scoops her up to carry her on her back.
She used to give Ekko piggyback rides like this.
Ekko. Her brother.
Can’t think about that right now.
The walk topside is a silent one. Caitlyn is borderline unresponsive, and Vi has no idea if it’s because of the shock or her possible concussion, not to mention the leg injury. If it’s the grief, Vi can’t really understand that. She’s a woman of action, and her grief is loud. But Caitlyn is different than her.
She decides that the best thing to do would be to look for a place for Caitlyn to be seen by a doctor first. If Caitlyn’s mother really is dead, which she probably is, Vi doesn’t know if Caitlyn’s father would be up to treating his daughter properly. And Vi just wants Caitlyn to be safe.
It’s the least she could do, really.
The bare minimum, in fact. Considering this is her fault.
Vi’s convinced that once Caitlyn is ready to talk again, she’ll cast Vi aside. And Vi will let her. She understands. She deserves it. She should’ve done better. Been better. Gotten through to her sister. Or understood earlier that her sister was gone.
Eventually, Vi finds a hospital.
It doesn’t take long after Vi starts yelling for a team of doctors and nurses to take Caitlyn from Vi’s arms into their expert care.
Then she waits. Because what else can she do? She still needs to get Caitlyn home. That’s her goal. That’s all she needs to do. Then she needs to go. Needs to deal with her monster. And the curse that makes her ruin everything and everyone she comes into contact with.
Some time passes before a nurse calls her attention. He tells Vi that Caitlyn thankfully did not have a concussion, just some bruising and a shallow cut on her head. They also changed the bandages on her leg.
Damn, Caitlyn’s tougher than Vi thought, to not have a concussion after that.
But this means that Vi can take her home now.
The thought fills her with more sorrow than she’d like to admit. Because that means this is it. The last time she’ll see Caitlyn. She’ll take her home and then…leave.
She’s only known Caitlyn for a few days, why does this hurt so much?
Upon being discharged from the hospital, Vi starts leading Caitlyn towards where she remembers the other’s home being. Any other day, and Vi might think to feel a little bit of pride in her spatial memory. It’s always been sharp. But today isn’t the day she’s thinking about that. Now, she is only grateful for her memory’s reliability as the enormous mansion comes into view. And as they get closer to the gates, Vi sees Enforcers standing all around the building. Shit.
She watches as the Enforcers notice her, the red of her jacket and her hair probably making her stand out in the otherwise dull background. She then sees them take notice of who, exactly, is leaning on her, and suddenly their faces become much more urgent.
A couple of them start moving, probably making to separate Caitlyn from Vi, but before anyone can do anything, Caitlyn bites out, “She’s with me. Move aside.” Her tone startles Vi, it’s colder than she’s ever heard from the other woman, but she can hardly blame her for being at her limit.
The Enforcers stationed around the manor let them pass, although their eyes still fall warily on Vi. Whatever, she can take their stares, she just needs to get Caitlyn safely inside. And then…well, one step at a time.
The gates open for them, and Vi brings Caitlyn inside the manor grounds. When she hears footsteps behind her, Vi turns her head and sees that one of the Enforcers followed them in. At first she’s confused why, but when they open the large manor door for them a few seconds later, she understands. She mumbles out a quick “thanks”, but she thinks it may have been hidden under all the exertion she feels. She tries not to feel bad about that.
In the first room they walk into is Caitlyn’s father. Immediately Caitlyn practically leaps from Vi’s arms into his. And Vi knows in that moment that Caitlyn’s mother is dead.
Vi lets them have their moment. She slinks away, trying to find somewhere, anywhere, else to go in this huge place. She feels like an intruder. Probably because she is. She got Caitlyn here, back to her father.
Now what?
Does…does she just leave? Should she say goodbye?
Does Caitlyn hate her now?
Does Jinx?
The thought of her sister comes unbidden. As she enters what seems to be a small office of some kind, books on the shelves, and comes to sit on the cushioned bench by the window, Vi can’t help but wonder about her sister. It was one of her most frequent pastimes the last seven years, it’s not like the habit would stop now. And for the first time, Vi doesn’t know what to think. She’s asked herself if Powder hated her a million times pacing around that cell. But all she had was that night at the old cannery to go on. Now, she has more memories. And she doesn’t know what they mean.
Powder…Jinx…she thinks Vi doesn’t love her anymore. That she can’t love her. God, Vi hates that she wasn’t able to tell Powder–Jinx–what she needed to hear. She’s lost her sister again and it’s all her fault. Because she did this. She created this. This–this thing that wears her sister’s face. Because that’s not Powder. Right?
She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything anymore.
Jinx. She…killed Silco. To save Vi. But then she rejected Vi and shot a rocket at the Council, and now Caitlyn’s mother is dead. So much blood on Vi’s hands now. Not that she’s mad about Silco. But she is sad that Jinx had to do it. She doesn’t understand much about the last seven years, but she knows that Silco meant something to Jinx. To Powder.
And Vi had meant something to Jinx too.
Vi itches to leave. To open this window and leap out right now to go track down her sister. Or what used to be her sister. She…she still doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what to think. But sitting here and doing nothing simply isn’t her style. She’s done enough of that, being stuck in that cell. Being stuck while everyone and everything changed.
Her sister changed.
The undercity changed.
Ekko changed.
God, Ekko.
She doesn’t even know if he’s alive.
Well, her sister survived. Maybe he did too. They’re survivors, she can feel it. She should still check, though.
But.
She can’t leave Caitlyn. Not like this. Not when it’s her fault that her mother is dead.
Vi stares out the window for a few minutes more. Or maybe hours. She doesn’t know. Whatever the case, she hears steps padding into the room and feels someone sit beside her on the bench. A quick glance at dark blue hair lets Vi know it’s Caitlyn.
“Thank you, Vi,” Caitlyn says, a little breathlessly. “For bringing me back.”
Vi bites back the immediate guilt she feels in the face of the thankfulness so that she can give a reasonably appropriate response, “No need to thank me, Cupcake.”
She’s rewarded with the barest hint of a giggle, “Are you going to call me that forever?”
“‘Course I am, what else would I call you?”
“You can call me by my name, you know.”
No, I really can’t, Vi thinks. Because if she did, then that would be getting too close. This would all be too real. Better to stay with the shallow nickname. If Vi were being honest with herself, she’d know that she is already too close. She turns her head and meets Caitlyn’s lovely teal eyes, and in that moment she knows it’s over for her.
She looks away again, “Alright, how about ‘Cait’? That work for you?”
“This is the best I’ll get, isn’t it?”
“Yep.” She pops the ‘p’ for emphasis, just to be a little shit. It’s fun for her, but she’s also hoping to try and tease out a little bit of an ease from Caitlyn tonight. Heaven knows she needs it.
“Very well. It certainly beats being referred to as a dessert.”
–
Over the next couple weeks, they fall into an uneasy routine. Caitlyn is forced to step into her mother’s shoes quickly, overseeing the funeral planning, discussing the memorial for the fallen Council members, being the head of the Kiramman household. Amidst all this, Caitlyn manages to stand mostly straight. And when she can’t, Vi is there to catch her. She knows that underneath it all, Caitlyn is a woman grieving her mother, and she just wants it to stop.
Vi can empathize.
No one let her stop either.
So she endeavors to be the person that Caitlyn can let her guard down with.
With her, Caitlyn cries. She sobs. She screams her throat hoarse about how unfair it all is. And Vi simply listens. She has no words to give, and she doesn’t think Caitlyn would want such useless platitudes anyway.
In the meantime, Vi…stays. It’s not as if she has anywhere else to go. And being there for Caitlyn, it feels like her responsibility.
She wonders what Caitlyn would say, if she said that thought aloud.
She wonders why she doesn’t want Caitlyn to agree.
—
Sometimes Vi walks the streets of Piltover, which are quieter than they should be. The gaping hole in the Council tower greets her every time she looks up.
How many times had she imagined such a thing as a kid? Every time an Enforcer copped a feel, or threw her up against the fence, or a Topsider sneered at her, or she saw some kid starving in the streets—
No, this is not the first time she imagined the Council building blown up to smithereens. But now it’s real. If she’s being honest with herself, she isn’t nearly as upset about the attack as perhaps she should be.
She’s more upset that it was her sister who did it. Her sister who now wielded her enormous gun like it was a second arm. Or…not her sister anymore. Her monster. She said so herself. Why is that so hard to remember? And why does remembering that hurt so bad?
She’s also upset because of course nothing good can last in her life. Of course Caitlyn’s mother had to be in that goddamn building. Had Caitlyn been literally anyone else, it wouldn’t be like this. But the universe hates her. Always has.
Well fuck that.
She’s gonna fight for the one good thing she’s got left. It’s all she knows how to do.
Even if that means…even if that means she’s gotta clean up her mess to do so.
—
The routine continues.
Rain pours outside as Caitlyn falls into Vi’s waiting arms, sobbing. Vi can hardly stand to see the woman in such pain anymore. She has to do something. Anything.
There’s only one thing she can think to do. She looks into Caitlyn’s eyes, strengthening her resolve by feeding herself off of the pain she finds there.
Vi looks down.
“You were right, Cait,” The words taste like ash in her mouth, but she pushes through. “Powder’s gone. But I can make this right. If you get Jayce to fix the gauntlets, I can do this myself. No one else needs to get hurt.” Except for Vi, of course, but if she had the choice to take the pain of others onto herself, she’d make that choice every single time. It’s not even a thought to her, anymore. Just an instinct. Honed by years of being an…being an older sister.
Caitlyn shakes her head, “No.” A touch on Vi’s arm, light and brief, moving to grasp her hand, “No more rogue missions. No more reckless plans. My mother was right. My arrogance led me to take on more than I could handle, and she paid the price.”
Vi hates that Caitlyn has shouldered the blame of her mother’s death on herself. All Caitlyn tried to do was make things better. It wasn’t her fault. Vi almost wishes she’d just offload it on Vi, like everything and everyone else. Vi could handle it. She always did.
Then Caitlyn drops a piece of news that Vi had honestly been expecting for some time now, “They’re sending all the Enforcers after Jinx. I’m going with them.”
Vi won’t let Caitlyn do this alone. But for her sake or Jinx’s…she’s not so sure. “Please, I have to help.” It’s all she can offer anymore.
“You can.” Caitlyn says. Vi waits eagerly for her to explain, only to be struck dumb by the honest-to-god Enforcer’s badge she pulls from her pocket.
She stares at the badge, in shock. Not just that she’d been offered this, but that it was Caitlyn who did so. Caitlyn, who knew—
She’s just grieving. She’s just grieving. Don’t get angry. She’s not herself. She’s desperate.
Vi is impressed by how composed she manages to be, “Cait, I can’t wear this.”
“People are calling for blood.” Blood? Wait, why is Vi even surprised, isn’t that just what she was insinuating she’d do just a moment ago? God, it’s all so fucking confusing! Standing here in the mansion of the matriarch her sister killed—the mother of her girlfriend—or whatever you call what they are. Vi doesn’t know. Too many thoughts are running across her mind and she can hold tight to none of them, none other than the badge is burning in her hand, so she drops it.
Caitlyn continues, undeterred by Vi’s dismay, “The council can’t stop them. You can show that not all of Zaun supports Jinx. We can show them, together,” she adds with a slight smile.
For a second, Vi sees red, because what the fuck does that mean?! But she tampers it down with years and years of practice. She reminds herself that Caitlyn is not acting like herself. This is just a lapse in judgement. She’s just grieving.
But Vi has grieved. And she has never asked someone to betray their principles for it. She has never treated someone like a prop—
No. No. She won’t be mad. She won’t be mad.
Vi just backs away, head shaking with all the shock and disbelief and trying to rid herself of the anger that threatens to consume her. She tries her hardest to find the words to show Caitlyn how fucking horrible this idea is, “I watched them kill my parents. Do you have any idea how that feels?”
“Yes, I do.”
Vi has to leave this hallway immediately, because she might lose her composure completely if she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to be mad. She really doesn’t want to. But Caitlyn doesn’t know. She doesn’t fucking know. She takes a breath and looks away.
Then Caitlyn takes it a step further, “I thought you were on our side.”
Now Vi truly can’t stay. She pivots on her foot, “You didn’t think at all.” Then she stuffs her hands in her jacket’s pockets and walks away.
And keeps walking.
And keeps walking still.
She walks until she’s out in the streets of Piltover, soaking wet and aching for a drink to calm her mind. She didn’t used to be such a drinker. But lately it has become a habit. She understands now why Vander drank, she thinks. It keeps things manageable. Under the surface. Less real. Less painful.
As she sits under a bridge and feels at the bottles around her, she’s suddenly frustrated that the one in front of her is empty. Like it’s taunting her by not containing the one thing she’s craving right now. One of the many things, anyway.
She just can’t believe Caitlyn would ask this of her. And the way she spoke to her…those were the kind of words Vi never thought Caitlyn would say. Those are the kind of words Vi had come to expect from Topsiders since she was a child. But Caitlyn was supposed to be different than that. She is different than that. Vi just needs to help her see that.
Or maybe that isn’t her fucking responsibility.
Too many conflicting thoughts again.
Without alcohol, Vi can only resort to causing some form of violence to let out her feelings, so she launches the bottle with a shout.
But unexpectedly there’s another sound back from where the bottle lands, “Hey, watch it.”
Ah shit, there was a guy laying there, “Sorry.”
The man approaches, asking more genuinely than she deserves, “You all right?” Vi can’t answer that without being a sarcastic asshole, so she doesn’t.
The man must take her silence as an invitation of sorts because he sits right besides her. Usually, people see the wraps on her hands and forearms and know not to fuck with her, but this dude is as big as…as big as some other people she’s seen that are very big. Yeah. Not thinking about it. She’s great at that.
“You lose someone in the attack?” He asks, handing her a flask. She decides she might like him. She scoffs a little but takes the flask anyway, downing a sizeable gulp.
She doesn’t answer his question.
They sit together for maybe an hour after that before Vi sneaks back into the manor.
His name is Loris.
—
It’s the day of the memorial, and Vi is drinking with her new buddy Loris. They don’t really know much about each other, but they know enough to swap stories and bottles. It feels similar to the way she’d make those surface-level friendships with the other inmates in Stillwater. When she wasn’t in solitary, that is.
The freedom to sit in the sun and drink her woes away is not a freedom she takes lightly.
She’s a bit buzzed, laughing to herself about Caitlyn’s idea of joining the Enforcers (see? drinking makes the pain so muted that it’s funny now), and she's starting to feel the guilt ease back into her mind when two Enforcers suddenly block her view of the sun.
One of them calls her by name. An Enforcer, knowing her name? Probably trouble. “Who are you? And how do you know my name?”
The ginger Enforcer, the one who said her name, speaks up, “Junior Officer Nolen. Maddie. And it’s written on your face.”
Oh, so we’ve got a smartass over here. Wonderful. If she wasn’t an Enforcer, and Vi was back in Stillwater, she probably would’ve given them a lovely sock to the jaw for that.
Unfortunately, she can’t do that, so she elects to be an asshole right back, “So what is it? Random search? Escort off the property? Or you just here to waste my time?”
At least the Enforcer, Maddie—Nolen (though Vi’s just gonna call her Maddie)—is a little bit thrown off guard by the attitude. Good. Not as much as Vi would like though. Because she’d prefer that these Enforcers leave her the fuck alone. But Maddie just explains why they’re there, “You’re something of a legend amongst the Enforcers.” Oh this should be good, Vi starts drinking from another bottle. “Caitlyn made quite the scene at the station when they tried to deny your enlistment.” She what when they what? “Now I have to ask, is it all true? You went after Silco alone when the Council wouldn’t back you? Took on his whole gang?”
Caitlyn said that about her? Vi’s kind of touched. But also slightly irritated, because this means that Caitlyn enlisted her without telling her. Maybe that’s why she already had the badge.
When Vi asks, Maddie replies, “She said if every Enforcer had a heart like yours, we could take on Noxus itself.”
Not the first time Caitlyn has had something to say about her heart. And not the first time Caitlyn has said something so horribly naive.
Yet…Vi can’t help but feel something about this. Maybe hopeful? Maddie doesn’t seem so bad of a person…what if the Enforcers were filled with good people and not the crocks of shit they keep putting in a uniform? Vi’s still doubtful it would change much, but maybe it could change something. Maybe it could mean that the Enforcers would have their priorities in check. Maybe they wouldn’t kill the people who wanted Piltover’s boot off their neck.
Maddie says something else, but Vi’s not really listening, not until she says, “Anyhow, I’m glad you’re joining up.” Well, that’s wrong. And Vi has half a mind to tell her how wrong that is, but she sees the hope in Maddie’s face and she can’t bring herself to.
“After the sheriff betrayed us…well, let’s just say that it’s nice to know there are still good ones left.” Maddie holds her hand out for Vi to take. Vi swallows down the uncomfortable feeling she gets from the choice in words and takes it. Maddie looks so pleased. Vi can’t really stand such cheer at the moment.
She just feels…sad. Like she’s made a mistake of some kind. But what was the mistake? Telling Caitlyn to fuck off? Or by even considering for a second that she could do good with a badge? Or maybe the mistake was sitting here, drinking her feelings away instead of dealing with them like a competent person.
—
It is only after the attack on the memorial that Vi has a chance to speak to Caitlyn again. Her adrenaline is still coming down, heart rate subsiding after pounding in her ears from the fight, and the bone-chilling terror she felt that she and Jayce wouldn’t be able to save Caitlyn from a gruesome death.
And they didn’t save her.
Ambessa and her Noxian soldiers did.
As Vi walks towards the tent where Caitlyn sits, she makes brief eye contact with the woman. She’s not entirely sure what to make of her, other than she is not someone to be fucked with. And the way she came in clutch for this fight…Vi finds the timing suspect, but the influence of that timing to be more so. Because Ambessa, as far as Vi knows, which isn’t much to be fair, is not a part of the politics of Piltover. Yet her soldiers are here and she’s been giving orders and, from what Caitlyn has said, whispering in a Council member’s ear. Something about all that sits uneasy with Vi. But…she is Mel Medarda’s mother. So maybe this isn’t so unusual. It doesn’t matter right now. She needs to talk to Caitlyn.
When she gets to the tent, Maddie and the other Enforcer from earlier are looking Caitlyn over. Thankfully, she looks fine. Caitlyn nods the others off, leaving her and Vi alone.
Vi can’t help it, her first instinct is levity, “Thought for sure you were gonna get yourself killed.”
Yeah, she probably deserved the complete lack of response she got for that one. But it’s the look of barely concealed rage on Caitlyn’s face that truly makes her take pause. They both look to an Enforcer picking up a crying child.
Vi tries not to think about the dead kid in the Shimmer factory.
“A memorial,” Caitlyn says, outraged. “What kind of animals?” She almost grits her teeth saying it, and Vi almost chokes.
She’s just grieving. She just had a near death experience. She’s just rattled.
Vi decides to let the comment slide, but she hates herself a little bit for it, “They wanted the spectacle. They’re trying to scare you.” She doesn’t want Caitlyn to take this personal. And she doesn’t want Caitlyn to keep using this kind of language either. It’s getting…concerning. She hates that she’s the logical one now, because that’s not who she is. Now, she’s not a fool, but she thinks with her heart, and her fists, and she thinks fast. Caitlyn has always thought slow and methodical. Or at least, she did in the days she’d known her, before all this.
But now Caitlyn is enraged, “All they did is piss me off.”
Vi has nothing to say to that, so she moves on to the other reason she's here, “You need to find a way to call off the invasion.”
“What?”
Vi tries her best to explain, to soothe Caitlyn’s anger, “This battle was on your soil. Down there, you’ll be on their terms.”
It doesn’t work, “None of this is on our terms.”
“Maybe you should change that.”
“I don’t know how, okay?!” Caitlyn snaps. “She dies and leaves this giant hole, and I’m just supposed to fill it. Like she was never there to begin with.”
Now this is a little more familiar. Vi can offer Caitlyn something here. It’s not something she’ll like, though. She gently lifts Caitlyn’s face up to look at hers, “Hey, you won’t. The hole gets smaller, but…you never fill it.”
Another quiet moment between the two, and Caitlyn speaks up again, “I was wrong to spring the badge on you. It’s just…every way I slice it, if I go after your sister alone, one of us comes back in a box.”
Vi knows this. She also knows that in Caitlyn’s mind, there was no question of Jinx’s death. That’s why Vi had offered to do it in the first place. To stop Caitlyn’s hands from being washed with that blood, in case she ever regretted it. Or if it made her relationship with Vi too complicated. Because she couldn’t lose this. Not now. Not when it’s all she’s got because she still doesn’t even know anything about Ekko and there’s the guilt again. Because she’s a horrible sister. She shuts that train of thought down, hard.
She refocuses on Caitlyn, “It’s all coming apart.”
Vi shakes her head, “No, it isn’t. We won’t let it.” And she sits by Caitlyn. Defeated, maybe, but she hopes she doesn’t show it, because Caitlyn needs her to be strong right now. Caitlyn needs her to be her rock. And as long as Vi is needed, she can maintain the facade.
Because on the inside, she’s screaming herself hoarse, stabbing herself in the heart but stubbornly clinging to life. Because she’s made her choice.
Caitlyn will go after Jinx no matter if Vi is there or not.
Vi has already accepted (no she hasn’t, but she’s not acknowledging that remember?) that Powder is gone, and Jinx is the monster Vi made out of her.
Vi can’t lose Caitlyn too.
She has to make sure it isn’t Caitlyn coming back in that box.
There's only one choice she can make.
“Cait.”
She hates herself so much. This is all her fault. And even fixing it makes Vi feel lower than dirt.
“I’ll do it,” Vi turns her head to Caitlyn, hoping she doesn’t look the way she feels. “I’ll wear the badge.”
Vi can’t tell if it’s better or worse that Caitlyn doesn’t argue the point, or even ask what changed her mind. She just smiles, and looks grateful that at least this one thing could go her way.
Vi can’t begrudge her that.
—
The clothes don’t fit.
Well, objectively, they do, but Vi still feels like they pull on her the wrong way, that they’re too loose in others. She doesn’t belong in this. She doesn’t look right in this blue and gold.
It takes everything in her not to rip the clothes from her body.
At least she was able to keep her chest wrappings, the only thing from her previous outfit allowed to stay.
Caitlyn was impressed by Loris’s ability to use a shield during the memorial attack. She recruited him, and rather easily too. Vi got the feeling he did not have much else to do, or much of a dog in this fight.
The other two members of their squad are the two Enforcers from before, Maddie and, now she knows, Steb.
She’s too disgusted with herself to even think of a sarcastic quip to say when they come out of the shadows honest-to-god posing while Caitlyn sells the appeal of their strike team to the remaining Council.
Vi’s sure that Caitlyn is making a convincing argument, but she’s not listening. There’s only ringing in her ears as she has an out of body experience, looking at herself from the outside. The discomfort on her face is palpable. Does anyone else see it?
Does anyone else care?
She keeps trying to tell herself what she’s here for. She’s here to stop Caitlyn from going off the cliff in her grief and clear need for revenge. She’s here to stop people like Ambessa whispering in her ear. She’s here to stop her sister, or what used to be her, from suffering anymore than she’ll need to.
She’s here because she needs Caitlyn, and this is the only way she’ll get her.
And as she stands there, wearing the badge of the monsters who killed her parents, who made her life a living hell day after day…
Vi has never hated herself more.
Oh, the things we do for love.