Chapter Text
"Ugh..." Caitlyn tried to look around the corpse-filled, bloodied battlefield as the sounds of distant explosions boomed in her ears making her feel the already-present dread in her chest become an almost consuming force. Her eye tried to focus past the corpses, dismembered enforcers, and dead Zaunites, but she only saw Mel and Sevilka run to her with a frantic pace that screamed deadly urgency.
"Where's… Vi?"
The sounds of the now-collapsed battle rage around them as the women come to her, desperate to access her wounds, especially the empty eye socket that continues to bleed profusely.
As she can see Vi anywhere, the deep panic that was already settling in her heart begins to fester, bringing with it flashes of memories with the woman. The touches that hid words of love none had courage to speak, the night they spent together as they awaited for the council meeting and how the words had flown freely between the shimmering in their eyes, the softness of her lips after the barrier of vulnerability that coated them was briefly shattered and the warmth of the body she never believe she'd have the honor to touch and bestow her love upon.
“I'm sure she's alright, Caitlyn. Vi is a strong woman, she must be coming this way as we speak.” Mel tried to ease her, as Sevika tended to the bleeding eye socket, doing her best to stop the bleeding.
Sevika shared a glance with Mel, and a soft shake of her head, signaling that it was bad; in fact, it was the worst wound she'd seen in her time. It urged Mel to try to ease Caitlyn further by taking her hand and giving a soft squeeze, not letting Caitlyn get up just yet due to her state.
Caitlyn struggled with the agonizing pain that sent her brain into a near state of shock and fought to stay awake, trying the best that she could to fill her dying mind with images of the woman she loved and wished to spend the rest of her life with. But the searing pain in her missing eye socket and the deep stab wound were pulling her slowly into the quiet veil of unconsciousness even as she tried to stay awake.
"I want to see her...I don't wanna be alone..." The world fades from Caitlyn's grip as the pain mounts to create a crushing beast that she cannot fight against in the weakened state that she is, even as it grips her heart and begins to drag her down to the ever closing curtains of life
As she fell into oblivion, her ears managed to listen to Vi's panicked scream coming towards her, but she couldn't fight the darkness that overcame her, wrapping around her soul like a weed would wrap around a pole in the fields, gripping, spreading.
“Cait!?” Vi yelled out in the distance as she ran to Caitlyn, discarding her gauntlets in the middle of the corpse-stained floor.
She stumbled with each step, pushing aside the heaviness of her fatigued and grief-stricken body. Even as the disequilibrium threatened to toss her to the ground, laying her along with the corpses of her fellow comrades, she pushed forward.
Her voice cracked with horror between the tears that ran down her battered and bloodied cheeks as she dropped to her knees next to Caitlyn. Vi hovered her hands over the woman's unconscious and bloodied form in a mind breaking, dread-filled panic as she felt the last part of her world crashing down.
Vi had already lost her sister and her dad in a traumatizing show of broken bonds and futures. But seeing the love of her life, the one she didn't have any time with, in what looks like her death's door, caused her to almost spiral into madness.
“No, No, No.” Vi began to panic. Her breathing became hyperventilated, leaving her dizzy and unsteady. Her vision began to blur, and the ground under her knees began to move and sway, as every cell in her body turned to nothing but silence.
She looked at Caitlyn’s missing eye, taking in the gruesome sight of the swollen and purple skin of her eyelid. Her stomach churned at the slight view of her empty socket coated in torn flesh that glistened with each movement of Sevika's tending. The connecting optical nerves that were now severed and peeking out of the lash almost made her faint out instantly, causing her to sway.
Sevika put a hand on Vi's shoulder, trying to speak some sense to Vi as she could tell that, if given enough time, shock would take Vi into the eternal slumber as well. She could feel the intensity of the woman's heart rate under the tip of her index finger, far too quickly for her own good.
"You're gonna have to calm down. If you don't get your bearings and help me save her ass, she'll be dead. Now, do you want to help me or not?"
Vi closed her eyes tightly as her body shook in an unbearable amount of building grief whilst trying to slow down the frantic heaving of her chest and the undeniable pull to the darkest corners of her mind that not even the smells of blood and gunpowder could battle against. She nodded quickly, her voice nothing but determination, love and fear of losing Caitlyn.
"Just tell me what to do." Vi looked down at Caitlyn, tracing her injury with her blurring eyes while her hands gently took one of Caitlyn's, shuddering at the coldness that seemed to be slowly instilled in her. Sevika continued to put pressure on her eye, and she couldn't help but let out stray tears as her free, tremulous hand ran over her cheek.
Caitlyn's breathing was strained and shaky. She was growing colder to the touch, making Sevika motion for Vi to help her lift Caitlyn and follow her.
Vi gently slithered her hands under her lover's limp and iced body, forcing the tears of grief to be pushed back into their confined chests as Caitlyn's head lolled back like a soulless cadaver. She tried to force the images of Caitlyn's smile and the sound of her laughter back into her mind, urging her to not fall into the crumbling images of the future they were meant to have.
Her arm was screaming with the pain of her dislodged bones, yet she made no show of her agony, as the mission of getting the nearly passed woman in her arms to safety would outweigh anything that dared to cross her path, even if it were herself.
The feeling of her lover's limp body in her arms was a feeling she never wished to experience again. It felt as if she was carrying the shreds of a once ever-present soul that now was drifting aimlessly in the dark sea of eternity, away from her touch and the strong beat of her heart.
They passed over the bodies of friends and foes alike. Over dismembered body parts that painted the once pristine grounds of the counseling building, in a deep shade of metallic smelling red, reducing the marbled floor to a shallow red sea.
As the three of them walked through the wreckage, they came across the infirmary tent that was left relatively intact from the Noxian bombings.
Vi set Caitlyn down on the cot gently, trying to not stir her too much. As she heard a faint whimper, Vi froze and looked at her lover's body with wide and shimmering eyes. Hope built in her chest at the small sign of life, but as she was about to grip that hope and swallow it greedily, Mel shook her head and gently pulled Vi back, allowing Sevika to tend to the girl's eye.
Sevika began to work as quickly as she could, but it was clear that the task was daunting. The room was dark, and the only light was coming from the dim light of a candle, flickering in the corner, dispelling the darkness from their surroundings. She told Vi to find some towels while trying to slow the bleeding from Caitlyn's eye socket.
Vi quickly ran to fetch the towels, moving with a panicked urgency as her heart hammered in her throat and her eyes carried a mix of numbness and trepidation as she returned. Mel was next to Sevika as they worked in tandem to stop and cauterize the socket to prevent more damage and further bleeding.
"Is she gonna make it..?" Vi asked fearfully. Her eyes didn't leave her lover as she watched Sevika suture Caitlyn's stab wound gently and with practiced ease from the multitude of times she'd been injured in the lanes. She never felt as much fear as she did in that moment, awaiting the answer, and feeling the coldness in Caitlyn's skin as her fingers wrapped around her wrist, needing to feel the weak but present heartbeat.
After a tense moment, Sevika put her tools down. She took a deep breath and spoke as calmly as she could, sharing a glance with Mel, seeing the fear in Vi's voice.
"She'll survive. The bleeding has slowed, and the wound is cauterized. She lost a lot of blood, so we need to keep her warm and get some saline in her. She's in for a rough recovery." Vi nodded and took a shaky breath as she looked down at Caitlyn's battered and pale form.
It was like looking at the cadaver of the one she'd never wished to see departing this world. For a moment, she almost gave into the faux whispers from the caliginous hands of dread, egging to break down and collapse while she screamed her grief and sorrows, but, the soft breathing of the woman made her grip reality with her teeth and nails and gather the little strength she had once more.
Vi leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, tasting the gunpowder and blood. Her tears trickled down her cheek unrestrained as memories of their moments ran wild in her mind. The moment they fell in love in Caitlyn's bed and she felt the tender touch of a soul for the first time. Their parting in the rain after the council meeting, and how she'd gone on pretending it didn’t affect her when in reality she had felt her entire soul being torn and left behind. Their first kiss in Zaun seemed short of a fairytale taken from the darkest book of war, and the softest warmth a heart could feel in the midst of destruction. Their first time together was just a few hours before all this monstrosity of casualties happened, and it culminated in the climax of their journey to each other. A soul finding her other half and finally fusing the golden threads of faith to create the infinite bond that not even oblivion could destroy.
“I need you, Cait.. I need your sweet voice, your smile.. your damn cocky smile like you had when you bailed me out of prison.. I need-” Her words were cut on her throat as the emotion wrapped its hands around it. She took a deep breath, dispelling it as much as she could before she continued.
“You were the only one who saw me for me, and not some brute who can fight and be trashed. I need you here, with me Cait.” Vi closed her eyes and continued to whisper against her forehead, grounding herself with the scent of death and battle still lingering in her lover's skin.
“Come back to me.. please.. I'll do anything to have you back, just tell me.. please..”
She could feel Mel and Sevika move around the infirmary tent, but nothing mattered to her as she crooned to her lover and pressed soft kisses to her forehead, her voice broken and raw with pleading words she wasn't quite sure were so much for Caitlyn or to the gods of death. Her eyes closed tightly, as if her words could bring Caitlyn back to her, unscathed and safe, away from the ever closing hands of extinction.
She could hear the choked sob from Mel and the breath hitch from Sevika as both women turned to look at them. Although Vi couldn't care at that moment. She couldn't care that her heart was out for the world to see, exposed from its usual guarded and protected prison, to reveal a broken woman who pleaded to eternity to keep her lover in her arms.
Caitlyn remained unconscious. Her chest rose and fell slowly, her breathing was still labored, and she felt cold to the touch, but she was fighting even if it was unknown to her. Her being was still fighting for the finality of the story it had begged since its creation.
Mel placed a blanket over Caitlyn to keep her warm, and Vi sat on the edge of the bed, watching her anxiously, as if her imploring gaze could bring her eyes to open, so she could at least tell the monstrous beast of dread on her shoulders that its presence was not justified. She took Caitlyn's hand in hers and squeezed it gently, trying to heat the skin and have it feel alive again.
Vi stood quiet and unmoving, her hand always holding Caitlyn's, and her eyes trained on her face, checking for any improvement or miraculous awakening. Even as doctors came to assess her lover's state and do some touch-up to the work Sevika already had done, Vi dared not to move. She only moved when Mel and Sevika came to help her move Caitlyn to her room back in the Kiramman Mansion.
Once Caitlyn was laid in the bed, Vi asked for warm water and towels from the women, who quickly moved to go get them. As she waited, she placed soft kisses to Caitlyn's forehead, whispering words of love and promises of forever that she'd vowed to herself to complete.
When Mel and Sevika returned with the warm water and towels, Vi thanked them quietly, lost in her own thoughts and the veil of numbness that seemed to help ease her into a more calm yet empty state. The women nodded and left, gently closing the door behind them as they shared a knowing look of sorrow and woe.
The room was quiet apart from the sounds of the city outside, whose streets were slowly being cleaned from its crymson and dark tints of war, and the occasional distant cries of the wounded and the lost. It was as if, in that small moment, those pristine white and gold walls could hide their souls from the sea of grief that swallowed the two cities.
Vi sat on the edge of the bed, her hand gently holding Caitlyn's and her thumb stroking her soft and warmer skin in a soft, repetitive movement, drawing tender patterns of love while her mind diverted back to the memory of the night they shared those sheets, causing her heart to constrict in her chest.
"I'll take care of you, Cait. No matter how long you sleep. I'll be here when you wake up." Slowly, she undressed Caitlyn, taking great care not to shuffle her too much. Her eyes watered as she took in the now bruised and battered skin that was unblemished a few hours ago.
"Oh, Cait.." She whispered as tears trickled down her cheeks. She gently soaks the towel and runs it carefully and tenderly over Caitlyn's body, washing off every spec of dirt, blood, and gunpowder. She placed soft kisses on her bruises and cuts, wishing, praying to whatever god existed that she'd be okay.
She hummed a soft tune to ease and soothe Caitlyn in her slumber as she continued to wash her carefully, turning her on her side with attentive care, to wash her back slowly. Her eyes traveled along her body, and she didn't stop the tears that fell from her eyes.
"You're safe now.. I'll protect you with everything.. I promise.."
She whispered in a trembling voice as she turned Caitlyn on her back once more and switched towels to wash her face. She couldn't cut the sobs at the image of Caitlyn in that state, nearly dead, bruised, and battered. She felt her world hanging by a string, a red string that held them together, and that, in that moment, she hoped would be enough to keep the love of her life alive.
After carefully dressing Caitlyn and making sure everything is comfortable and tucked in bed, Vi took a step back, feeling weak on her knees as another sob rips from her throat, and just as she was about to collapse into her grief, Tobias catched her in his arms, providing a surprising yet welcoming embrace.
As Tobias supported Vi's weak and slumped body, she let out the emotion that she had been barely able to hold back, finally crashing down like a dam breaking open, as her flood grief and fear came toppling down over her shoulder, threatening to drown her, amplifying the fear of losing the person she loves the most.
"I'm so scared of losing her." Vi choked out, allowing Caitlyn's father to hug her tightly as she cried to his chest, gripping his shirt to the point of almost ripping it.
Vi never felt such fear, such dread. In an instant, she couldn't breathe, felt like the floor was moving under her feet, leaving her suspended in a limbo of dread. Like the sky collapsing, and with it taking the brightness of the moon that guided her nights. The sea rushed to her like a tsunami that engulfed her, drowning her in the ghostly touch of her lover. Like the sun would explode the universe to pieces, leaving her heart to stutter, not able to continue beating, and her body felt like it was giving up on her at the mere thought of a world without Caitlyn.
"I know, Vi," he spoke softly. His own emotions were just below the surface of his voice, and yet, it remained difficult to express the complete support that vi needed.
"But we have to have faith and give Caitlyn time to recover. She's a strong woman, and she'll fight to come back to us. We just have to be there for her and support her in any way we can. And I have no doubt that you'll be there for her every step of the way." He pulled away just enough to look Vi in the eyes, seeing the fear and grief-stricken grey orbs that looked back with a pleading look, begging for him to resolve the impossible.
Tobias gave her a shaky but warm smile as he squeezed her shoulder and nodded to the bed where his daughter laid, purposely looking away quickly, running away from the spine-chilling image of the corpse-like figure of his once lively daughter.
"Now, go sit next to her and try to take a deep breath. She'll need your strength and reassurance more than ever when she wakes up.” He paused briefly to gather himself and take a deep breath.
“And I'll go make us something to eat. I'm sure you haven't eaten anything, and Caitlyn will be needing some food when she opens those beautiful eyes again." He then gave her one last smile before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.
Vi slumped slightly as the heaviness of the room came pressing onto her shoulders again. She walked back to the bed and took her seat next to Caitlyn, reaching until she took her warm hand. That simple warmth and the now strong beat of her heart made her relax faintly, like the feeling of the strong heart of her lover pumping the blood through her tired veins, pulling the veil of grief and darkness from over her for a moment, allowing the light of hope to shine briefly.
"You have to pull through, cupcake.. please.. I can't lose you.." Vi whispered tenderly as she shifted in bed, lying next to Caitlyn. She curled to her side, feeling small and unprotected, lost and choked with hopelessness. Her hand traced over her features softly and tenderly as more silent tears escaped her exhausted eyes, not caring to stop or contain them in the quiet room.
Caitlyn looked so beautiful when she slept. The way her lashes rested on her cheek, how her lips parted slightly as she breathed, how her remaining eye moved under her lid, how her nose twitched slightly, and the small spasms in her hands and legs. It made her look nothing short of a divine blessing.
As she continued to trace the almost celestial features of her lover, her fatigued heart seemed to finally slow into a steady beat, synching with Caitlyn's in a soothing rhythm that, unbeknownst to Vi, strengthened the golden threads of their souls.
Vi's eyes slowly closed, losing their battle with exhaustion. But as the quietness of the room washed over her drained body, her soul danced through the waves of darkness, swimming closer and closer to the sheen of the soul laid next to her.
Searching.
Hoping.
