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What wakes Caitlyn up is the smell. Then she feels the soft sheets that surround the skin not covered by her undershirt. Then what finishes taking her out of her slumber is the soreness. Her worn out body makes her remember the night before. Makes her remember the bites, the fingers, the scratching and the kisses. The pulled hair and the tender cuddles. The warmth of her, their bodies, coming together again and again and again and again and staying like that until sleep took over for what was left of the night. She then remembers the smell that just woke her up.
Vi’s making breakfast , she thinks and then hums to herself, already knowing she’s gonna love whatever her girlf- her partner is making.
Are they girlfriends? She hasn’t dared to ask out of fear of breaking this dreamlike life they have right now. They have been working together, as partners, alongside the new council and also rebuilding the Enforcers from the ground, to put Piltover back together. And maybe to hope for something more, something Sevika won't let anyone forget.
Caitlyn sits up, her tired body barely holding her up and she feels it shiver as she takes off the sheets. She looks out the window, trying to figure out if they are late for work or not. It’s a habit. She notices that the curtains are closed and remembers that today is Saturday and that they took the weekend off. She stands up and takes a look around the room.
It's been a month already. Since the Noxus invasion, since the Hexcore, since Jinx…
She wonders how long those memories are keep hurting. How long till they’re free of the past and of the grieving memories and vengeance-fueled choices. She knows it's not anytime soon, yet anyway she wonders.
She kinda likes the slight disarray that has become the rule across the mansion recently. Is not unchecked chaos. It’s not absolute order either. It’s a bit of both and even then she wouldn’t call it that. Their ways of life have merged together in some sort of synergy. It isn’t Vi’s lifestyle or Caitlyn’s lifestyle anymore. It’s… theirs. One they have forged through unavoidable arguments and necessary forgiving. Through shiny mornings of soft cuddling and heated nights of passionate lovemaking and vice versa.
Shaking away the memories for the time being, she walks up to the closet and picks a silky dark blue gown that she knows Vi loves. She turns around and walks toward her nightstand, and when she opens the drawer, her body stills at the sight of the eyepatch. The doctors said that, thankfully, the damage wasn't too severe. She hadn't lost the organ, it was just heavily damaged and it would possibly take years before Cailtyn could see through that eye again. Still, she didn't regret any of it. It was a fair price to pay for removing Ambessa off the board for good.
Getting used to it hasn't been easy, though. Her aim was obviously a little off (although if you asked any other person she was still an excellent shot) and if it wasn't for Vi supporting her all the way she would never hold a rifle ever again. She grabs the eyepatch and puts it on as quickly as she can, trying to avoid any other thought related to it.
She finally puts in some slippers and walks out the room.
As she walks through the hallway, Caitlyn sees parts of their clothes and more spread across the floor. She giggles at the memory of them trying to get out of them as fast as they could. The rest of it must be still lying near the entrance. She mentally thanks her dad for deciding to take a vacation and to go visit their family in Ionia for the week. She missed him, both now that he was away and before, when they were both grieving in their own self-destructive ways. Part of her resented him, resented the fact that when she needed fatherly comfort, instead she got the impossible weight of the Kiramman legacy thrown into her shoulders. Yet she knows he was just trying to give her something to focus on. He’s still grieving. They both are. But they’re getting there. Slowly but getting there.
As much as she wants to go to the kitchen to see Vi and kiss her and hug her, she walks first towards her mother’s- her office.
Sometimes she still forgets.
Taking a deep breath, she enters the room. Caitlyn sees the desk with the machine full of the Kiramman secrets her legacy holds. She cringes at the memories of her grieving past self, at how she perverted her mother's attempts to do good and weaponized it against the people of Zaun. She knows that Vi has forgiven her, somehow. Through words, through actions. Yet it still eats her inside, and she hopes that one day to actually feel deserving of such forgiveness.
She knows she has been doing the job. With Vi by her side and somehow, with the support of both councilor Shoola and, believe it or not, councilor Sevika. Vi is both confused and kinda proud of how now a zaunite sits in the council. Yet all three of them know that a seat won’t be enough. Caitlyn is still undecided about Shoola’s true allegiances or motivations, but she will take all the help she can for the moment.
In front of the desk, she opens one of the drawers and there it is. The object that has been at the center of what has been her most important investigation for the last month. Alongside is an envelope that had arrived the night before. If she hadn’t woken up around midnight, she might have missed it entirely.
She puts the object in one of the robe’s pockets, leaving the envelope for later, and finally makes her way towards the kitchen and towards Vi.
As she gets closer and closer, the smell of toast and fried eggs gets stronger. Who knew that such a simple breakfast could smell so good?
Among the many things Caitlyn and Vi discovered about each other over the weeks of living together is that a) Vi was one hell of a cook and b) Caitlyn was definitely not. She had told Cait that when they were kids and Vander was busy, Vi would sometimes prepare food for her siblings to eat. They didn't have much, so Vi had to make due with whatever was available. Some leftovers from Jericho's, some cooking wine that Vander got from Janna knows where, etc. Either way, Vi learnt more and more overtime and mastered the skill, bringing out perfection from the simplest of recipes.
On the other hand, Caitlyn had a lifetime ban from using anything in the Kiramman mansion kitchen. One time, when she was a kid, she tried to make breakfast for her parents’ anniversary. It didn't work out, hence the ban.
Finally in the kitchen, Caitlyn forgets for a second what heart shattering news she's here to deliver.
Because Vi, who was standing in front of the kitchen, cooking and humming the song from a month ago… wearing her clothes. Caitlyn's clothes. Nothing but a shirt she recognized as one that had supposedly gone missing last week and some underwear that Caitlyn had given to Vi for her to wear.
Caitlyn quietly walks behind her, slipping her hands under the shirt, startling her a little, and giving her a kiss on the back of the neck, to which Vi hums and leans her head onto Cait’s shoulder.
“Good morning, cupcake,” Vi says, giving her a little peck on the cheek and returning her focus to the frying pan in front of her.
“Morning, Vi,” Caitlyn says. “I’ll get some tea ready. Want some coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
She begrudgingly lets go of Vi’s body and walks towards the counter next to them. She opens a drawer and begins preparing their morning beverages.
After a while, with both of them sitting at the table and having their breakfast, Caitlyn breaks the comfortable silence.
“Vi, darling…”
“Yeah?” Vi says with a mouthful of toast and egg.
“There is… something I need to tell you.”
Vi appears to notice the anguish in Caitlyn’s face. She puts her cup of coffee on the table and reaches for Caitlyn’s hand.
“Hey, it can’t be that bad.”
“It’s not… bad, per se. It’s just…”
“Come on, cupcake. Spit it out alread-”
“Jinx is alive,” Caitlyn says, pulling out a very familiar metal monkey head and placing it on the center of the table. And then another type of silence takes over the room.
To say that the last month, the last years in fact, haven't been easy on Vi would be the understatement of the century.
The loss of almost anyone she ever loved almost killed her. Her birth parents, Mylo, Claggor, Vander… and Jinx. Was fate trying to prove a point? She lost her sister once because of her own mistakes and then she lost her again because she. couldn’t. let. go.
Ekko was the one who found her. Throat sore of crying and screaming. Her body numb to any pain because of how tired she was. Yet seeing Ekko again, after not knowing anything about him for months, was like receiving a splash of water in the middle of the desert. It didn’t fix anything immediately, but it couldn't have been more welcome. She realized that it hadn’t sunk in before, when she saw him again in the middle of the fight against Noxus. This time, they hugged each other tightly, like when Silco and his monster took Vander from their lives all those years ago, like in Firelight hideout when she realized how much he had grown. They both cried once again, mourning all that they had lost.
Then they talked. About their miseries and their pains and their loss. And they catched up as well. Ekko told her something about alternate worlds. About a place where almost everyone was alive and happy. When she asked what he meant by ‘almost’, he only gave her a somber yet sad look, so she didn’t ask him anything else about it.
When it was Vi’s turn to talk about what she had done, her throat went dry.
Caitlyn.
She stood as quickly as she could and begged Ekko for a lift. Seeing the distress in her eyes, he agreed.
They wandered across the battlefield. Enforcers and zaunites were all around them, cleaning and helping each other as much as they could, trying to find any remnant of the ones they had lost. When they landed, she found Steb, the fishfolk from the strike team. With his typical quietness, he directed them towards the interior. They walked around the corpses of noxian soldiers, enforcers and zaunites.
She recognized Maddie among them. She was going to get close, to try to pay some sort of respect for the woman. She hadn’t really clicked with her in their time together in the strike team. And she already supposed that she was who Caitlyn meant when she said she had been seeing someone else. But Steb grabbed her by the shoulder, with anger in his face. Vi hadn’t had the chance to get to know him that much, but even she was shocked to see that expression on his face. It wouldn't be until later where she share the same face.
Inside, the enforces had made some sort of makeshift hospital for all the wounded. That’s when she met with Sevika again after all this time. They obviously needed to talk. And talk they fucking did.
Everyone could hear their screamings. Their accusations of betrayal and cowardice. Some felt more true than the others. Things would have escalated into an actual physical fight if it wasn’t for the fact that they were both so damn tired. With a nod and the promise to talk later, they parted ways as Steb guided her deep into the tents. After a while, they arrived towards the one where Caitlyn was in.
She was sleeping when they entered. She looked so… fragile. More fragile than she had ever seen her. And fuck, her left eye was missing. Vi knew how much Caitlyn prided herself on being an ‘excellent shot’ and it broke her heart to think of how much sorrow the loss would cause her.
She sat in a chair next to her and grabbed her hand, barely noticing when both Ekko and Steb left them alone.
There, in the loneliness that silence brought, Vi broke once again. But then she felt a squeeze in the hand that was holding Caitlyn’s. She looked up and she saw strong blue eyes looking back. She wanted to kiss her right now. To hold her and to never let go. To cry on her shoulder and scream and shout. For now however, to look into that deep blue ocean would be enough.
Jinx is alive.
It’s been mostly an hour since Caitlyn dropped those three words on Vi.
She hadn’t said anything ever since.
They had moved from the kitchen to the office.
Vi is by the window, holding and looking at the monkey head in her hands, while Caitlyn is in one of the chairs.
“Do you really think she might be…?” Vi begins to ask but doesn't dare to finish.
Caitlyn stands up and looks at Vi directly in the eyes.
“Yes. I do,” Caitlyn answers, with a certainty Vi is well familiarized. “At first I wasn’t sure. We didn’t find no body at the tubes, only… the creature’s. Then I saw the schematics of the place and noticed that there were some exhaust pipes she could have made it through. And then a few weeks ago, there were reports about a blue haired person on the docks but with all her followers that was no solid proof that she-”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you thought she was still alive?!” cries Vi, throwing the monkey head to ground, ending up at Caitlyn's feet.
“It was just a hunch, I couldn’t tell you just yet!”
“Of course you fucking could!”
“Vi… I-”
“What? Were you afraid I was going to leave you and go running after her?!”
“What?! Of course not!”
“Then what?! Why would you hide this from me?!”
“BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT TO HURT YOU AGAIN!” Caitlyn screams and Vi notices a tear down her cheek. “I didn’t want to raise your hopes, after all the progress you’ve made, and then destroyed it all over again.”
“Cait…”
“I love you, Violet,” Caitlyn confesses, slumping into the chair. “I love you too much. I have hurted you too much. I know I should have told you from the beginning but… I just couldn’t do that to you again.”
Silence fills the room again. Although it's brief, as Vi walks close to Caitlyn and kneels in front of her. She picks up the monkey head again.
“What the fuck did I told you, Cait?” Vi begins, with a soft and shaky voice, and Caitlyn looks at her, and sees that she’s crying as well. Vi softly raises her right hand toward her eyepatch, silently asking. Caitlyn nods and lets her remove it. The eye is scarred, with gray shade over it, still healing. Caitlyn hates looking at it when she sees herself in the mirror and tries to look away, but Vi softly holds her by the cheek. “I’m the dirt under your nails.”
Vi then kisses her and Caitlyn kisses her back. It's tender, and full of love and care as it always has been. Vi then shortly backs out and leans her forehead against hers.
“I love you too, Cait,” she says, looking directly into her eyes with a small smile on her face. Caitlyn smiles at her back.
“I’m so sorry for hiding this from you, but I had to be certain.”
“It’s okay, cupcake. I get it. You wanted to protect me. To be honest I kinda missed someone taking care of me like th- Wait... what do you mean by that? That you ‘had to be certain’?”
At that Caitlyn stands up and walks toward her desk. She opens the same drawer she opened earlier and pulls out an white envelope. She turns back and hands it to Vi.
“Yesterday, in the night, after our… activities,” Caitlyn says, blushing a bit at the mention of what they did last night. Vi smirks and teasingly raises an eyebrow at her. Caitlyn chooses to ignore that and continues. “I woke up because I needed to go to the bathroom. I went back to sleep but something was keeping me up, so I decided to burn the midnight oil by reading some other files in the archive.”
“Caitlyn…”
“I know. Anyway. On my way here I stumbled upon this envelope near the entrance. It had no sender and only our address was written on it. But as you can tell,” Caitlyn says as she points at the very familiar monkey symbol that the envelope had for a seal. “It was obvious who sent it. It was then that I decided that I had enough evidence to present to you that… well…”
“Jinx is alive,” Vi says and understands why Caitlyn held back the possibility for so long. The hope that creeps within her heart feels… dangerous to say the least.
“I don’t know what it says. But I know you deserve to open it first.”
Vi says nothing as she looks at the envelope.
“I could leave, if you wanted. I know that it is-”
“Don’t. Please, stay,” Vi says, softly holding her by the forearm. She then sits down in one of the chairs, with Caitlyn standing next to her, and softly breaks the seal. She opens it and pulls out a folded paper with “For Vi” written over it. She instantly recognizes it as her sister’s peculiar handwriting. She opens it up and begins to read.
Dear Violet Vi sister fat-hands,
Yeah yeah I know it. I’m not dead! Surprise!
It's probably been a while, tho. I don’t exactly know when I will be able to send this, since I’m writing in it on an airship (finally got to fly in one!) on my way to Janna-knows-where.
The thing is… I needed to get out. I think we both needed that. You probably have been living the life of your dreams under the roof of your rich piltie girlfriend. You know, probably eating fancy food and doing… you know… all over the place. Thank goodness I’m not around to watch all that. That would probably kill me for real
S orry about that. Gallows humor, you know? I think that’s what Sevika called it.
I’m sorry I didn’t manage to tell you all of this in person. But I think I knew I never could. If I looked you on the face, I wouldn’t be able to leave on my own. Either you would want to go with me or I would simply not do it.
That’s all I have to say right now. Maybe I’ll write to you more. Maybe not. Who knows.
The only thing that matters is that we will always have each other's backs. We will always be sisters.
Even if we are worlds apart.
I know that now.
Love you.
-Jinx
PD: And hey! Maybe by now you have already seen your girlfriend's butt! Welcome to the club! HAHA.
All Vi can do now is cry. Cry as Caitlyn holds her. Cry as she finally receives some good news in her constantly doomed fucking life.
Later, they call for Sevika and Ekko and tell them the news on the Last Drop.
Later, Vi saves the letter on her nightstand.
Later Vi goes to sleep with her official and actual girlfriend with a smile on her face.
Because… well…
Jinx is alive.