Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“While you’re there, darling, please don’t wander for too long. The doors open at eight this year and they don’t like stragglers.”

“You know, you’re starting to sound a lot like-”

“Don’t you dare.”

Vi smiled as she laced her boots. “Your dad.”

A sock hit the side of her head. Vi laughed and picked it up. Blue with stripes, her favorite pair. She’d thought it was lost to the labyrinth of this house. “Nice. I was looking for this one.”

“It was in your dresser,” the voice drawled pointedly behind her, “hidden beneath the pile of twenty other mismatched socks.”

“Huh.” Vi mindlessly stuffed it in her back pocket. “Another mystery solved, Sheriff. You’re on a hot streak.”

Caitlyn hardly resisted Vi’s tightening hold on her waist, the kiss against her jaw, her neck, or even Vi’s hands drifting to her ass. “You’re not very worried about the time, are you?”

Vi felt her melt in her arms, her body still warm from the shower. If anything, the time constraint was working for her. She reached for the drawstring of Caitlyn's lounge pants and tugged. “Oh I make good use of every second.”

“In what-” Caitlyn felt Vi’s tongue on her neck and wavered, but, by some divine resolve she lacked on most days, she managed to grasp Vi’s wrist. “In what world do you think I would let you take my clothes off before the fundraiser?”

Vi nuzzled her neck. “Mmm I was hoping for this one.”

Caitlyn smiled before pushing her away. They’d never get anything done if she didn’t. “Try hoping for something more likely, Violet.”

“Ah…” Vi took her jacket from the armchair and checked for the bathysphere ticket. Apparently she wasn’t allowed to get her pants dirty tonight. Something about being on her best behavior at this party. But a portion of the money raised would benefit Zaun, and with that in mind, Vi could stand to take a slow cable car instead of her favorite way down. “More likely than… what was it you said the last time we went to this shindig?”

She walked to the front door, acutely aware Caitlyn was following her. It was a beautiful evening out, the sky turning a golden hue. Vi stopped on the stoop.

“Oh yeah, I remember.” She kissed Caitlyn’s cheek innocently enough that a passerby would see a simple goodbye, and then brought her mouth close to her ear. “Take my dress off in the middle of the ballroom for all I care… and fuck me through the night.”

“That was-” Caitlyn’s cheeks turned a healthy shade of pink as she glanced toward the street. For someone not particularly shy in the bedroom, she sure acted the part in public. “Couldn’t you use that memory of yours to recall where your socks are?”

“Selective memory, cupcake—does me just fine. Besides, you’re the one who wears half my shit anyway.”

“One jacket weeks ago.”

Vi stole another kiss. She didn’t mind the thieving—Caitlyn looked good in all her clothes.

“See you tonight.”

“Eight sharp,” Caitlyn reminded her.

“I know.”

“Wait.”

Vi stopped at the front gate. If Caitlyn had gotten used to her eyepatch by now, it didn’t keep her from fiddling with the elastic behind her ear. When it got worse than usual, Vi knew trouble was brewing.

“Are we… about yesterday…”

Vi tensed, feeling like their perfectly nice evening would turn. “We’re good.”

Caitlyn took her hand and squeezed it. “I know it’s not easy for you. I’d just like us to discuss it soon. My father will be here next week and-”

“I said we’re good,” Vi snapped, then pinched the bridge of her nose. “Cait, I’m sorry, but-”

“No, it was foolish to bring it up now. Go. I’ll see you tonight.”

“We’ll talk about it. I promise.”

Caitlyn cupped her cheek and gave her a soft kiss. “Go, darling. Come back to me in one piece.”

True to its nature, the bathysphere creaked its way down into Zaun. Vi sat in the corner, looking out the window at the people ambling along the streets. Zaun had changed as much as a city could change in five years. Sevika’s voice on the council had moved some things along, but the work to be done remained a colossal venture.

New laws for the factories and refineries had reduced the smog in the air, and Ekko had led the effort to make better use of the vents, thanks to the Kiramman blueprint, but the Chem-Barons had regrouped and still had a stranglehold of the streets. Piltover’s council had lost all say in their schemings, though it was in the interest of both parties to maintain cordial communication. Chaos didn’t benefit their industries. The way Vi saw it, it was a political shitshow either way.

She left the station and made her way to the Lanes, aware of the time passing but in no rush to leave Zaun. She would make it back for eight. Easy.

The Last Drop hadn’t changed much in the last few years either, though Vi had long ago torn down the neon eye that had made bile rise in her throat. With a little help from the Kiramman House, she’d gotten the deed and the keys, but, well, Scar ran the show just fine without her. Vi didn’t have the drive for the business end of it, but it was the last piece of Vander, of them, she had, and she’d be damned if she let a Chem-Baron buy her out.

She found Ekko at a table talking to Scar, both of them enjoying the quiet tunes and chatter before the factory workers poured in. Vi dropped a pouch on the table.

“You owe me big for this one, Little Man. Had to sweet talk Piltover’s richest for days.”

Ekko opened it and found a hefty amount of seeds. “You won’t be sorry,” he grinned before carefully tucking it in his coat.

Vi pulled out a chair. “So what’s it for? You a green thumb now?”

“Have you ever read about vertical farming?”

“My girlfriend does the reading.” She thanked Scar for the beer he slid her way and drank a generous sip. “Don’t you need a shit ton of water for that?”

“We’re working something out.”

“Anything I can do?”

Ekko shook his head. “I’ll be asking soon enough. You just stay on your girlfriend’s good side.”

“Doing all right so far.”

Ekko seemed hesitant. “There is… something, though.”

“Spit it out.”

“Do you remember the mines? The entrance near their mural?”

Vi felt the tension in her shoulders again. She hadn’t been there since- “What about it?”

“We thought we shut it down a long time ago, put on bars and everything, but some kids managed to sneak in through a pipe last week. Got lost for hours and came back at night raving about a light in the wall.”

Vi waited for the other shoe to drop. Those mines were full of fucked up flora but that wasn’t cause for alarm, as long as they didn’t make a sandwich out of it.

“I know what you’re thinking, but they started passing this around...” Ekko pulled out a piece of paper and showed Vi what looked like oval shapes drawn tightly in the middle of the page. She stilled, trying to understand what she was looking at.

“It’s just a bunch of circles, Ekko.”

“Yeah, at first glance.” He turned the page around and used his pencil to draw a faint sphere englobing the shapes, making it look like a cratered moon. “But that’s an anomaly.”

Vi frowned, the word almost forgotten to her now. Maybe she still didn’t comprehend the scientific mumbo jumbo behind that thing, but she knew what mattered.

“Another one?”

“No,” Ekko stressed, lowering his voice. “That’s the point. I looked everywhere for it or anything like it, but that whole place is dying. Just dark, cold and empty. The kids couldn’t even tell me where they saw it. Besides, it—it’s impossible. They must’ve found old sketches and tried to scare each other.”

“Some monster. What happened to crabs and slugs?”

Ekko chuckled softly. “Not as cool, I guess. Anyway there’s been chatter. Nothing loud, but you know how stories spread. I don’t want enforcers getting anxious and breathing down our necks, that’s all.”

“Cait would’ve said something.”

“There’s nothing to say. I’d just… keep my ear to the ground.”

Vi sighed. Another one of the million things on the list. “Does Sevika know?”

“Not yet.”

“Keep it that way.” She finished her beer and stood up.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I’ve got… a thing.”

Ekko noticed the fitted shirt beneath her jacket and her black pants, accented with a gold stripe down the sides. “Looking clean.”

“Shut up.”

“I'm serious, you look good.”

“Yeah, well, playing the part.”

Ekko smiled. “You know, you don’t have to pretend to hate it. It’s okay to enjoy yourself, Vi.”

“Now you sound like Cait.”

“Better looking though.”

“Not sure, I’d have to see you in a uniform.”

Ekko looked like he’d been slapped with rotten fish. “Over my dead body.”

Vi laughed and went to check on Scar and Chuck, grateful they were holding down the fort. Tomorrow she’d be back in the full grind, but tonight she had a date, and she liked the sound of it.

Vi didn’t… wander… exactly. She just took the longer path to the bathysphere, and if she got distracted along the way, it was only because the sky was clear this evening and the dark purples of the sunset were painting the walls of Zaun. She couldn’t remember ever seeing it this way. It wasn’t the same in Piltover. The sky was… a constant you could take for granted. If she dug through her memories as a kid, Vi only saw the greys and greens of sickly fumes spewed out from refineries. She'd never dreamed of her city looking like this.

But if wandering meant looking at the station and then turning back to take a lift deeper, then yes, Vi was guilty. In her defense, she’d still be on time.

The mural hadn’t changed much. Moss had covered a corner of it, and the colors had faded, but Jinx still towered over Piltover with her fist raised, and Vander was still immortalized in his halo of flowers. Vi stood staring at it until the wind picked up and she felt the moisture in the air change. Rain soon. If she didn’t move fast, she’d arrive at the party looking like a wet dog.

But Ekko’s story gnawed at her. She didn’t like the idea of kids playing in that toxic shithole of a mine, let alone stumbling upon things they didn't understand. Kids around here had active imaginations, but they usually didn’t make stories up from scratch. Vi wasn’t sure what compelled her to check it out.

Maybe because the mines felt so tied up with her own stories. Maybe because the last time she’d set foot in there, she’d found her family again, and she still felt that singular ache deep in her bones.

Vi found the pipe near the barred entrance and pulled the cover off. It wasn’t anything she wouldn’t have done as a kid, but it was a tighter fit than she would’ve liked. At least the pipe was dry, which was fortunate for the sake of her damn pants. She climbed inside and dropped down into the shaft of the mine, landing in the middle of the tracks.

The air was heavy and acrid. Vi thought she’d be used to it, but this was different. Like an oily film enveloping her. She clapped her hands and sighed, feeling like an idiot. The fungi on the walls barely glowed, pulsing faintly or not at all. Ekko was right: This place was dying.

She followed the tracks one way and then the other, back and forth until there was nowhere else to go. Her fingers brushed against the steel door to the workers’ room, over the claw marks carved in long ago. Even if the rusted hinges were close to falling off, Vi didn’t open it. Whether the room had been cleaned out or not, she never wanted to know.

Her ears started ringing and she twisted around, on alert but unsure where to look. A bright light blinded her and vanished just as quickly. Vi shook her head, but the high-pitched sound in her ears grew louder.

Another beam of light painted the walls before dimming to nothing. One after the other, the bulbous fungi squelched, releasing their glow until they looked hollow and dark.

Vi realized the place wasn’t just dying, it was dying fucking fast and she was in the middle of it.

She bolted, grunting when her vision blurred and the ringing made her ears feel like they were bleeding. The walls warped and expanded, releasing a putrid gas.

Disoriented, Vi's shoulder knocked into sharp rock. She stumbled backward and reached for a crag in the wall, but felt something burn her fingers. She recoiled, stepping into a puddle, only to notice the sock in her pocket had fallen in it, where a bubbling started melting it like grease in a searing pan.

The sludge morphed, turning into a fractal of colors Vi never even knew existed, oval in shape, then shifting, taking over, until there was nothing left of the sock.

Vi scrammed, gunning for the exit, but it was as if the air itself was slowing her down, growing hotter and denser. What felt like a hammer knocked the wind out of her, and the blinding pain in her gut brought the world to a screeching halt.

Tinnitus faded into the faint thumping of music.

The blinding neon of the fungi dimmed into the warm hue of coals in a stove.

Vi groaned as she ran a hand over her face. So much for one piece.

Her stomach turned and she rolled over, puking on the floor. Only the floor wasn’t hard rock and dirt, but wood.

She looked up and realized she wasn’t in the mine but in a room not unlike her old digs, with bottles on the floor and clothes piled up in a corner. She squeezed her eyes shut, her mind too scrambled to make sense of anything. But when she peeked around again, nothing changed. Immediately she noticed her pants: Stripes on grey and a sleeveless top that definitely wasn’t fundraiser-approved.

Jolting up, she looked at herself in the broken mirror hanging near the sink. Shorter red hair with streaks of black, scrapes all over her face and a nasty cut on her nose. It was like looking at the past. Only this was now, today, and if she was delirious in the mine somewhere, imagining this, why was she able to taste booze on her tongue and feel the pain of one too many fights?

And how the hell had she wound up here looking like this?

Ekko would know, she thought. He was the smart one. Though her head wouldn’t stop pounding, Vi made her way to the club she lived above and left through a back door. She felt nausea gripe her insides again and threw up in the alley. It was starting to feel like a bad hangover and not the shifty, confusing aftermath of inhaling poisonous gas.

“You okay, kid?”

She froze, frowning at the lumbering man coming toward her. It couldn’t be.

“Loris?”

He put a jacket over her shoulders, his large hands gentle with her. “You forgot this.”

She blinked, then threw herself in his arms. Loris engulfed her in the embrace without hesitating, his arms more protective than a shield. “I’ve got you.”

Vi pulled back, befuddlement taking over again. “You’re—I don’t understand—you died.”

Loris smiled sadly. “All right, champ. Why don’t you sleep it off? I’ll take you upstairs and come find you in the morning.”

“Loris, I-” A flash of saturated colors sent a painful throb in her head. “I need to find Ekko,” she gritted out.

“Ekko?"

"He was at the Drop; I have to-"

"Ekko's up top, kid, and it's a long way in your state.”

“Up top? Where?”

“Hm, he'd be on academy grounds at this time."

Vi pushed past him. “I have to go.”

“Vi!”

It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. She'd watched him die; been to his funeral and watched as they'd lowered his casket. That mine was playing tricks on her.

Vi’s vision felt hazy the whole way to the station, but the further up she went, the more she noticed how Zaun had changed.

Enforcers sitting at open bars, chatting and laughing with the bartender. Kids dressed in clean clothes, with real toys that weren’t cut-up tin cans and sticks. The sky cleared of all fumes, vast and bright—and were those stars?

She couldn’t wrap her head around it. All that and yet here she was, feeling like she’d drunk her weight in booze. She waited in line at the station, painfully aware of the way people looked at her. How a mother kept her kid behind her. How an old man sneered. 

It was like she didn’t belong at all.

“Up or down?”

Vi stared at the station agent in the booth. It was the same expression in his eyes, a mix of mistrust and annoyance.

“Up.”

He extended his hand. Vi frowned, then searched through the pockets of her jacket.

“Uh.” She found a coin stained with dried blood.

The agent rolled his eyes and took it, sliding over a ticket in exchange. “Next.”

Vi sat in a corner of the cable car, trying not to retch when it started gliding up. She didn’t need these people judging her any harder. When she got off, she realized the bathysphere hadn’t squeaked or rattled once.

Piltover looked… like Piltover. Prosperous, tall and immaculate. Vi stuck out even more, feeling like a grease ball rolling into a glass shop. It shouldn’t have been like this anymore. She’d gotten over this—the not belonging—except right now it felt like a spotlight was suddenly aimed at her, exposing every wound, flaw and speck of dirt.

If there was no feeling of home for her at all, either in Zaun or in Piltover, where did she slot in? They’d never let her on Academy grounds, not like this. Come to think of it, she didn't have a clue why Ekko would've gone there after the Drop.

“Cait,” she whispered, the only harbor she had left. Caitlyn would know how to find Ekko. She knew this city like the tatt on Vi’s back—every line, bolt and pin. She’d be pissed, mad with worry, but she’d help her fix this. She always did.

If Vi could’ve changed at the Kiramman residence, she would’ve. But the two enforcers smoking and chatting at the gate dissuaded her from even trying it. Another thing she didn’t have the energy to confront yet.

She kept out of sight in the emptier streets as she made her way toward the estate the fundraiser was taking place in. They wouldn’t welcome her with open arms, but she was with a Kiramman, and that’d be enough.

Vi braced herself against the walls to close her eyes and steady her breathing, still carrying around a deep-rooted discomfort. It was a tension in her body; a complete unease with herself and the world around her. The ringing in her ears came and went without rhyme or reason. 

All she needed was to find Caitlyn. They’d leave together and she would drag her ass to a doctor, Ekko, and maybe a shower. They’d seal off the mines for good and she’d sleep off whatever fucked up delusions her mind was conjuring.

The estate hadn’t changed, which was a relief in itself. The glass dome atop the mansion looked over a sprawling garden, and the carpeted stairway led up to the tall, wide-open doors. Guests walked past the front gates in their finest clothes, nodding their greetings at the few enforcers on guard.

Vi glanced up at the intricate clock right below the dome. Evidently the event didn’t start at eight sharp, it started at nine. She huffed, feeling both duped and impressed. “Good one, cupcake.”

She stood at the end of the small queue, waiting for her turn with the attendant managing the guest list. They could stare for all she cared, nothing would keep her from going inside.

The attendant glanced up and down at her before clearing his throat. “Welcome, miss…?”

“I’m under Kiramman. Vi.”

His brow furrowed as he briefly scanned the list. “Right, well, I don’t know what bottle you’ve fallen out of, but we don’t want any of that here.”

“Check again.”

“There’s only one Kiramman and you don’t look the part.”

Vi felt a twinge in her jaw. “I know what I look like, I just need to find her.”

“I’m afraid you’re at the wrong place. Now get out before I get you escorted out.”

An enforcer built like a prison warden stood next to the attendant. “Invitation only.”

“I’m on that list.”

The attendant shook his head at the enforcer. He put his hand on the handle of his baton and stepped between them. “Nobody wants a scene.”

Sweat started beading over Vi’s brow and she groaned as another flash of color stung her eyes. “I don’t have time for this, asshole.”

The enforcer’s demeanor immediately shifted. “All right, time to go.”

He gripped her shoulder tightly and pushed her off the property, stepping back when she jerked her arm away.

“Thought you goons learned manners.”

He reached for the handle of his baton again, standing firmly in front of the gates. “Do you want to rethink this or do you want a night in a cell?”

Vi flipped him off.

She retraced her steps around the expansive property, trying to find a quieter area at the back of the estate. She pulled herself over the tall brick wall and landed in an immense, lush garden. Pain spread to her sides and she winced at the distant swell of music, glasses clinking, and laughter.

She slunk through the garden and stood flush against the wall of the mansion, peeking through the large glass window that gave into the ballroom. It was opulence itself, with chandeliers casting a bright light and perfectly manicured vegetation climbing the walls inside. The guests trickled in, mingling with the already sizable crowd.

At least this looked like what she’d expected. Her eyes swept the room countless times, hoping to spot cobalt hair. It felt like her legs would give out beneath her at any moment.

And then the world stilled.

Vi felt her heart finally settle. The flashes, the colors, the distortions—all disappeared.

Caitlyn walked into the room like she’d already won it over. Her midnight blue dress clung to every curve of her body, with a slit up to her thigh and gold accents on her shoulders. Her hair was up, showing off her neck and the jewelry on it. She looked… rich. Dripping in Kiramman wealth and exuding the power that went with it. If her smile didn’t already charm everyone, that dress would do the work for her. When she laughed, the people with her joined in. When she took a sip, the waiter appeared from thin air to top up her glass.

It was her, all right. If only she still had her eyepatch.

Vi tried to run all the possibilities through her head, but dizzy and drunk hardly mixed with clear thinking. 

For a long time Caitlyn spoke with the Houses in attendance, giving each her undivided attention. Then, she walked out with a guest on the terrace. Vi hurried around the mansion and stuck to the shadows as she overheard the two converse.

“Surely we could find a way to bring everyone back to the table.”

“We will, but equity must remain.” Caitlyn's voice was authoritative, measured and to the point.

“The merchant guild has grown since-”

“The merchant guild retains the same claim to the seas as Zaun.”

The other woman inclined her head, though clearly frustrated. “Times are changing, as are the population’s needs. I merely suggest revisiting past agreements-”

Caitlyn looked away, toward the garden. Vi held her breath, swearing for a moment that their eyes met, but Caitlyn continued the conversation smoothly.

“You will find no favor with me, Amara. I’ve been quite clear. We are to increase our investments in Zaun, not encroach on their territory.”

“I wouldn’t dare suggest otherwise,” Amara conceded with a thin smile before retreating back inside.

Slowly, Caitlyn’s body unwound. Her eyes closed, fatigue betraying her for the first time. She massaged the nape of her neck and sighed, then stepped away.

Vi crept toward the terrace but found it empty. “Cait!” she called out. 

A rustling reached her ears too late. Vi found herself shoved against the wall with her arm twisted behind her back. She groaned, but she’d recognize that style anywhere.

“Pretty sure it’s not my fault you forgot my name on that list.”

“You’re the drunk they stopped at the door,” Caitlyn said flatly.

“Trust me, I wish I was just sloshed.”

Caitlyn released her to turn her around, but was quick to press her arm against her collarbone. “Would you stoop so low as to steal donations?”

Vi tried to find any semblance of tenderness in those eyes, but Caitlyn looked at her like a stranger. “All right, cupcake, I’m getting really fucking confused.”

The word didn’t have its usual effect. Instead, Caitlyn pushed her arm up tighter. She had the right moves, but in any other situation Vi would’ve found it easy to turn the tables on her. There was no muscle in that arm.

“That makes both of us. Who are you?”

Vi felt her heart drop like a rock. A sudden sharp sting shot through her body. Caitlyn released her grip as soon as she cried out, unsure if she’d been the one to hurt her.

“What are you-”

Vi fell to the ground and puked out whatever filth was messing up her insides again. She dug her fingers into the dirt beneath her, struggling to breathe. Sweat dripped down her forehead and nose as her head spun, the garden around her blurring into a mass of greens. 

“She needs a doctor,” Caitlyn yelled at someone behind her. “Go!”

“Yes, Councilor!”

Councilor, Vi thought to herself, so delirious she saw the grass move like waves between her fingers. ‘Who are you?’ Caitlyn's voice echoed in her skull. Every part of her body hurt but nothing could’ve cut deeper than that. She felt heavier by the second, like she was turning into a burning stone. Councilor… she repeated, and then keeled over face first in the grass.

Where the hell am I?

Chapter Text

Come back to me in one piece.

Vi groaned awake, her entire body feeling like it’d been through another war. She touched her arm and found a thin tube running up the length of it, while her other hand was handcuffed to the side of the bed rail. She pulled at it, cursing under her breath.

“About time.”

Sevika. Hardly the person Vi wanted to see. She was leaning against the wall near the window, cutting a sharp figure in clothes she wouldn’t usually be caught dead in.

“Nice jacket, but you didn’t have to dress up for me.”

Sevika rolled her eyes. “I put in a word with the council because your old man saved my life back in the day, but you’ve really stepped in it.”

Vi looked around. “Where am I?”

“General clinic. Do you even remember what you did last night?”

“Ah… lived out my personal nightmare?”

“Cut the shit,” Sevika said, nostrils flaring. “What the hell were you thinking? A drunk pit fighter trying to sneak up on a damn councilor! This is exactly the kind of noise Zaun doesn’t need right now.”

Vi winced at a piercing sound in her ear. So the nightmare wasn’t over. Fucking hell.

“Look, Kiramman wants to talk to you,” Sevika said. “Swallow up whatever pride you have left and apologize. It’s about time you clean up, Vi. You’re… better than this.”

Sevika walked out with a shake of her head, leaving Vi to the clinical white room. She touched her ribs, finding that they were still painful. Her head felt lighter, not so hungover, but there was still…

“How are you feeling?”

Caitlyn had changed into a simpler outfit since their encounter in the garden, but Vi found it only served her status as a councilor. And wasn’t that another mystery—how the woman who spent her days profiling criminals, always on her feet, could settle for a life in politics.

“Scattered.”

No matter how hard Vi tried to catch her eyes, Caitlyn remained guarded. She tried to appear stern, but there was underlying curiosity to her too. Vi knew her too well, no matter her mask. Caitlyn was burning to investigate this.

“The doctors have told me you have two broken ribs and multiple stress fractures, not to mention the… state of your hands,” Caitlyn said, glancing at them. “I’m not sure how you’ve been walking, let alone climbing your way onto private property.”

“Sounds about right.”

“You told the registrar you were expected under my name; why?”

Vi swallowed, her thoughts still fuzzy. “Why not?”

Caitlyn sighed. “Were you trying to steal the pot?”

“The pot?”

“The money raised.”

Vi ran a hand over her face. “Damnit, Cait, just punch me awake already.”

Caitlyn frowned. “I understand that you’ve had to deal with severe misfortune. Sevika has spoken in your favor and I’ve learned that… The old system failed you, Vi…” she said, testing out her name aloud for the first time, “and for that I am sorry. It was wrong you were left in Stillwater for so long, after such a terrible accident. But this path you’re on now…”

“I would really love to talk about my path, cupcake, but I have no clue what you’re on about. Honestly? I’m not even sure any of this is real.”

Caitlyn seemed at a loss. “Do you realize that you’re looking at a considerable fine? And frankly, because of the importance of the event, and the people in that room, Sevika’s word may not be enough to sway the council. Trespassing onto a private estate, with your criminal record and your ties to the fissures… They are calling for harsh punishment.”

Vi felt a spike of anger. Whatever this place was, this world, she’d already made a mess of things. “Seriously? What about your word?”

“My word?” Caitlyn repeated. “You’ve tried to use my name; you’ve… sought me out when I was alone, acting like you personally know me; and you’ve now repeatedly acted like, like-”

“Like?”

“A complete lunatic! So, please, tell me, what word of mine are you entitled to?”

The buzzing in Vi’s ears droned in. She squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds. “It’s funny, you’d think I could get a little taste of that money for Zaun, seeing as… y’know, I’m the Zaunite here.”

“I’m afraid we can’t allocate funds for your… proclivities,” Caitlyn replied flatly.

“Oh, and what are those?”

“Judging by your knuckles, the breath on you last night, and that… hair, I’d wager you’re the underground champion we’ve heard so much about.”

“Huh. Nice.”

“Nice? You fight to fill the pockets of- of mob bosses, of gamblers and-”

“Making money not allowed now?” Vi scoffed, pissed on behalf of… well, herself. It was like meeting Caitlyn in Stillwater all over again, with the… fucking judgment. “You sounded so concerned about increasing your investments.”

“In infrastructure and employment,” Caitlyn stressed. “Not… not-”

“Not the rotten underbelly someone like me comes from, hm?”

Caitlyn leaned against the wall, huffing in frustration. “I’d like to work with you, Vi. I believe in rehabilitation, and from what Sevika has said, you have strong relations and influence in the deeper reaches of Zaun. You can help her—us—in our project to better-”

“Not up to me,” Vi shook her head, feeling another sharp ache inside her, like her damn mind was being pulled in all directions. Which, yeah, that sounded about right.

“That puts us at an impasse, then.”

“Bummer.”

Caitlyn looked down, disappointed, and Vi couldn’t stand the idea she’d messed this up too. This wasn’t… her Caitlyn, or whatever that meant, but it was still her.

“Look, can we start over?” Vi asked, tugging at her handcuffs. “If you’d just…?”

Caitlyn arched her brow. “I know you must be quite used to getting your way in the Lanes, but here you’re-”

“You don’t know anything,” Vi cut in, ticked by Caitlyn’s turn of phrase.

“From the sound of it, you don’t either.”

“Have you even been down there?”

“Zaun?” Caitlyn asked, taken aback. “Of course. I frequent the market and I regularly meet our constituents at the public square.”

“The bridge. You’ve been to the bridge and the statue fifty steps away from the station. That’s it?”

“Uh, well, I- Sevika is your representative and-”

“So you’ve never been to the fissures. You don’t know how trenchers live, but you think you know who I am because you looked at my file this morning.”

A blush had crept on Caitlyn’s cheeks.

“You know what? Forget it,” Vi muttered. “I just need to find Ekko.”

“Ekko? The inventor?”

“Yeah, sure, let’s go with that.”

“Do you really not understand your predicament? You’re under arrest until the council-”

“Fuck the council,” Vi spat.

Caitlyn inhaled deeply. “Yes, well, much as I would love to go fuck myself, I’m afraid it’s not a convincing enough argument to let you go.”

Vi let out a wry laugh. “A sense of humor. That’s kinda rare from you, cupcake.”

“Stop calling me that. I’m a councilor. A decorated officer-”

“Yeah, yeah, leader of the House and everything.” Vi struggled against her handcuffs again. “Can you get these off of me or not?”

Caitlyn looked appalled. “No.”

Vi sat back against the pillow. “Tell you what, you get Ekko to come see me and I’ll play my part, apologies and all. I’ll take you to the fissures. Show you a little secret about the Kiramman vents that aren't on your blueprints.”

Which was a gamble, Vi thought, knowing full well Caitlyn might already know it, but at least she had a card to play.

Caitlyn’s eyes widened. “The… How do you-”

Vi extended her free hand. “Ekko first, and I’ll meet you at the station tomorrow, bright and early. Deal, councilor?”

Caitlyn looked down at it, torn between mistrust and curiosity, but Vi had seen that expression many times before and knew the outcome already. Curiosity always won the game.

Caitlyn took her hand and squeezed it.

“An anomaly,” Ekko repeated. “Fascinating.”

He was dressed every bit the part of the illustrious inventor, crisp shirt neatly tucked in his slacks, his hair tied up, a nicely fitted green jacket, even a pocket watch. He looked good. Content. But different, too.

“Really? I mean, you believe me?”

Ekko had come late in the afternoon, wide-eyed but eager to help. In light of her pressing situation, Vi had given up on subtlety, telling him, I’m not your Vi, shut up and listen for a minute, as soon as he’d sat down near the bed, notebook in his hands. She’d given him the abbreviated story; the anomaly born from overuse of magic, the mines, and the snag she found herself in, a complete stranger in this body, with a life that wasn’t hers, in a world she didn’t recognize. She’d almost told him more, about Hextech, about his own work, but he’d stopped her with a wave of his palm, saying, quite hurriedly, No, don’t.

He mulled it over for a moment, asked her to draw it for him, and so she did, wobbly circles on the page, but not in a sphere, rather fractured and spread in a puddle of water.

“I know you, Vi,” he said eventually. “You and I may be… struggling to get on the same page these days, but you don’t lie. Not to me. Besides, there’s… something about your eyes.”

She felt self-conscious then, but he gave her a smile and then sat back, hand on his chin, like the big thinker he was. At least that didn’t change.

“There were two students at the academy who vanished, years ago,” he started, trying to remember the details. “It was before I got there, but the story passed down. They were messing around with… well, we never knew for sure, but rumours said crystals and gems. One day they just… disappeared. Gone. Their research was looked into, but it was just scribblings about magic. Entire pages of improbable theories and… this.”

He tapped his pencil against the drawing. “This thing was on a page of theirs that found its way into student hands. I never knew what to call it… but an anomaly. A wild rune. Yeah, that could fit.”

Vi felt her heart in her throat, not liking the sound of any of it.

“One of them came back a few months later,” Ekko continued, pensive. “He trashed their penthouse, broke into the academy to burn all their research that’d been sealed, everything. Then he left. Nobody ever found out where.”

Vi blinked, trying to parse what he was saying. “All right, and what’s the good version of this?”

Ekko forced a smile. “We’re talking about magic, Vi. It’s not exactly my field—or anyone’s in Piltover. I mean… is there a scientific way to recreate magical pathways? Yeah, it’s been studied before. But you said this anomaly was destroyed?”

“Years ago… I thought.”

“Hm.” Ekko stared at the drawing. “Regardless of magic, if it was born from organic matter, that means reproduction and decay. It’s possible that before it was destroyed it leeched somewhere else. Like if you spill water and it goes through a crack in the floorboard.”

“The floorboard being the mines.”

Ekko nodded, the wheels now spinning in his head. “And it would survive if there was sustenance around, but well, everything dies eventually. Some organisms release nucleic acid toward the end, like a final grab at something. Did you… touch this thing?”

“Stepped right in it, breathed it—how fucked am I? Just say it.”

He got up, pacing the room. “If it was just an offshoot, and a dying one at that… Your body could’ve inhaled a potent whiff of that thing’s core properties. You been puking a lot here?”

“Only half a lung.”

“That’s good! That might actually show some kind of tether.” He paced more for a moment, talking to himself under his breath. “If you’re here… but Vi’s… hm no… but maybe if…” He stopped, turning to her. “See, any healthy body will react to poison the same, by trying to evacuate it, but…”

“But?”

“This poison happens to be magic in a body not built for it. It’s possible a part of you decided it didn’t want to deal with that pain and, uh, split. Literally. So, in a way, you used the magic to your advantage… as a defense mechanism against the magic. Get it?”

“No, Ekko, I don’t get it —I don’t even want to get it. How do I fix it?”

“Um, that depends on your body. You got… friends? Or are you gonna rot alone down those mines ‘till dehydration gets you?”

“Fuck you. Your sorry ass is the reason I went there.”

He sat back down with a smirk. “Then you should be fine. Shit, Vi, the implications of different fractals of us… Entire worlds…”

“Ekko-”

“No, I know. Keep the door closed. I’m not that stupid—no offense. Still… it makes you wonder.”

“Now what?”

He drew an arrow through the anomaly on the page. “You know the saying, The only way out is through? Looks like Vi didn’t care to fight you much, but… that girl always gets back up eventually.”

Vi swallowed. “I guess.”

“It’s a good thing. You want her to kick you out. Then you hope your own body’s gotten strong enough you can handle the pain… and you settle back.”

“Just like that? Do you see mage written on my fucking forehead?”

Ekko frowned at her tone. “No, I see parasite,” he countered back.

Vi’s shoulders fell. “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just…”

He touched her wrist. “I get it, you're scared, but our bodies are a part of who we are. There’s clearly a tie since this body seems to be echoing yours. Have some faith you can follow it when the time comes, all right?”

Vi nodded absently, amazed by her friend’s composure in the face of this. “Thanks, Little Man.”

He smiled. “Heh. Haven’t heard that one in… gotta be a decade.”

“So are you gonna tell me what the punchline is? I know that look on your face.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, uh, the thing with parasites? Eventually they find a host that… kills it.”

Vi was released that same night and walked through Piltover in a daze. According to Ekko, there wasn’t much to do other than sit around and wait, which didn’t happen to be her strong point.

Nausea clawed at her insides occasionally, but knowing it was possibly a type of phantom pain helped. The notion of a tether made little sense to her, but she’d cling to it regardless. In a way it felt like she wasn’t anymore clued in as before, the reality being: she was fucked.

And all she could think about was her eight o’clock date.

Had the day passed there too? She imagined Caitlyn waiting for her in the hall, then the steps outside. Her disappointment when the clock struck eight. Her worry. Her fears. A mad rush home. To the Lanes. To the Drop. Tearing the place apart to find Ekko, too. All that and Vi couldn’t do a single thing about it.

She tried to appreciate the beauty in this new Zaun, imagining this future for her own, but the deeper she went, the more it looked like the undercity she knew. There was work to be done here, too.

Without even thinking, she found her way back to the hole in the wall she’d woken up in. “Home sweet home,” she muttered, kicking away the bottles on the floor.

She couldn't recognize herself in the mirror—something about her eyes, like Ekko had said. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she whispered. “Kick me out of your damn head already.”

She saw a piece of paper folded on the side of the sink, opened it and felt her insides turn to ice. Two stick figures holding hands smiled at her, one blue and the other pink, a signature Pow at the bottom of the corner.

Vi felt it then: grief and guilt so tangled together it tore up her insides worse than any poison. Her body suddenly heaved; she leaned over the sink and threw up, but the ache disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared. She splashed water on her face and washed out the taste, bitter and… earthy.

She lay on the mattress, curled up, and tried not to break apart, staring at the drawing. Time was only the master of scars. It didn’t erase or kill the pain. It buried it deep, but nowhere was deep enough for grief. Vi knew she’d lost not one but two sisters, Powder and Jinx, the types of pain for each being so acutely different. One day she cried for lost innocence, for the little girl she’d left sobbing under the rain; the next she cried for the girl who’d let go of her, saving her, yet also taking with her any hope of a future together.

It was how she could tell—without being able to explain how—that this Vi hadn't known anyone else but Powder. Whatever had happened, it seemed she hoped for distractions to do the dirty work time was failing at.

“Wish it worked that way,” Vi sighed, closing her eyes. She’d cried enough herself, she couldn’t cry for this stunted fighter too.

She tried to sleep but found it evasive, her thoughts too filled with Ekko’s theories. A girl from the Lanes, passed out in a mine, her mind somewhere else, too chickenshit to stay—was that really the sum of all this?

Slowly she drifted, focused on the near-perceptible feeling of Caitlyn’s hand on her waist, gentle and protective in her own way. She could almost feel the warmth of her, the tickle of her hair against her face.

Stay with me… stay… please… Vi… please…

Vi thought of the way Caitlyn slept next to her; the way she’d mumble sometimes, the oddest string of words that made no sense; the way she’d kiss her cheek goodnight, stretching with a yawn and a pleased hum. How she’d nuzzle her neck after a long day; smile at a wandering hand and the suggestive cant of her hips; whisper in her ear how it was late, but… oh… maybe they could kiss for a little bit; how she’d rouse her from sleep in the morning with the promise of breakfast.

Before she knew it, the tears had fallen anyway.

It was dark out when she heard the gentle knock. Loris had deep-set fatigue resting heavy on his shoulders, but relief flooded his eyes when Vi opened the door.

“Hey, champ. You okay?”

It was still a shock to see him; see the man she’d spent months with years ago and lost in the blink of an eye.

“Yeah, I’m… I’m fine.”

She sat on the bed, inviting him in, though his frame barely fit through the door. He picked a bottle up. “Not getting top shelf anymore?”

Vi shrugged. “All starts tasting the same, doesn’t it?”

“Hm.” He sat on the chair in the corner, near the coal stove. “Heard there was a… scare up-top. Some Zaunite trying to pounce on a councilor.”

Vi chuckled. “Kind of the other way around actually.”

Loris seemed to deflate. “Wish I’d heard wrong.”

He looked at the embers in the stove, quiet for a long time. “I care about you, kid. I can hold you up after fights. Count your money. Clean your cuts. But I can’t follow you back into Stillwater, if that’s what you’re trying to do. This life here, the broken bottles, broken bones… It only ends one way.”

“Loris-”

“Don’t make a tired vet carry another kid to the grave.”

Vi felt a sudden stabbing pain behind her eyes. “How’d I end up like this?” she asked, trying to shake off the feeling.

He used the fire iron to poke at the coals in the stove. “How would anyone not? But you were a kid, too. You did your time—so much longer than you should have. You can’t carry this weight forever. It’ll rot your insides faster than these bottles do.”

Vi waited at the station, sitting on a bench, rolling a stained coin in her hand. She enjoyed the sunshine on her face, the promise of a warm day at least. 

A train pulled in and out came a small crowd, Piltovians and Zaunites in equal numbers. There was no denying Zaun was thriving here; shops flourishing, eateries full, even showrooms for tech. But this city was so much more than a few levels.

Caitlyn came out of the station looking nervous, the opposite of her disposition at the fundraiser. Vi sat up, trying to ignore the odd feeling in her gut, like she was looking at another woman, in a way.

But it was hard not to see the one she would go to battle for. Hard not to let her heart pound, though it struck her that perhaps it wasn’t her own reaction, that perhaps someone was showing some willingness to fight her on this. She couldn’t be sure, but something about the chill down her spine felt new. Felt like seeing Caitlyn for the first time, truly.

“I wasn’t sure you’d be here,” Caitlyn said, then caught herself. “I-I mean, not that your word is no good-”

“Relax,” Vi chuckled, having somewhat missed Caitlyn’s early-days bumbling.

“Do you feel better?”

“It’s nothing that can stop me.”

“Good.” Caitlyn looked toward the station. “Shall we take the bathysphere down, then?”

“Nah. Too boring.”

Vi led her down the main street, into another one, and then out closer to the docks, where they walked along the canal.

“You should be pleased to know that the council has voted to dismiss your… case,” Caitlyn said after they’d passed the fish market.

“That was fast.”

“Yes, well, a drunken mistake shouldn't have caused such an uproar in the first place. There are more pressing matters at hand.”

Vi pushed the door to a building—deserted and crumbling in her memory, but here a softly-lit parlor for smokers. The smell was woody and rich, with just a hint of sweetness.

They crossed the room to an open lift, which started its slow ascent into the belly of Zaun. Vi leaned against the wall, watching Caitlyn take it all in. The colors of the undercity, smoky greens and neon yellows, washed over them, more and more vibrant the deeper they went.

Welcome to the Lanes, Vi nearly said, but the words didn’t feel like hers to say. She touched her forehead and noticed sweat, like she was exerting herself in some way.

“You seeing anyone?” Vi asked, shaking her head to find focus. What if… what if that was the key? To give herself—well, Vi—something different? Not another meaningless distraction, but something tangible. A goal. A purpose. Several, actually.

Caitlyn turned to her with wide eyes. “Excuse me?”

“I know a lot of spots for two. Just trying to personalize the tour, cupcake.”

It couldn’t hurt to try. To goad herself into fighting for this spot. Well, it made sense in her head anyway.

Caitlyn cleared her throat. “A neutral approach will do, thank you.”

The lift stopped and opened. Vi walked out with a smile. “So that’s a no.”

She took her to Havel’s—Jericho's having relocated to the market on the bridge—to sing the praises of the grilled meat-on-the-bone before they ambled down the street. Vi could… feel a shift inside her. The throbbing headache between her ears increased slowly. But she needed to get this done first. For once, she hoped her damn self would show some patience.

“If you want to help Zaun, really help," she told Caitlyn, "you need to look at the undercity too. Get your hands dirty. What you’ve done so far, up-top… It’s painting over the cracks. Everyone likes a fresh look, but what’s the use if the walls are crumbling anyway?”

Caitlyn looked around, this market night and day compared to the one above. Crowded, cramped and full of hagglers. The walls around them were dirty and the windows broken. Particles of dirt and smoke hung in the air—Caitlyn coughed several times, the back of her hand pressed against her mouth.

Come to think of it, this was worse than the Zaun Vi had known. As if the focus on the top had made the trenches sink further.

“We've tried so many times to open communication with the industrialists,” Caitlyn said, sounding overwhelmed. “But Sevika says they’ve burrowed deeper. That the infighting in these districts has gotten more violent. The merchant guild has started to worry they’re gaining more control over the docks. Every week it’s something else.”

“Hey, chin up,” Vi said, but Caitlyn seemed dispirited. “There’s still a lot of good around. People doing their best—and ready to fight for it, too.”

They walked down an alley, passing by groups huddled in corners, playing cards or tinkering with scrap.

“You’re not at all what I expected,” Caitlyn said.

Vi winced, feeling a sharp twinge in her gut. “How’s that?”

“I suppose Sevika had painted quite a picture, with the pit-fighting. I’d always imagined it took a certain type to… get into that.”

Vi took her down a few sets of stairs, where the walls surrounding them were covered in graffiti.

“And what type am I, then?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Caitlyn said with a small smile. “We have just met, Vi…” and then she turned to look at her, stopping them. “Haven't we?”

Vi swallowed, feeling her skin prick, like she’d been caught in a lie. A sudden flash of colors made her eyes burn and her head pound again. She leaned against the wall, hands balled into fists.

“Ah, fuck.” She gritted her teeth, this time the pain too much to muscle through. It was like a thumping against her skull; someone’s boot pressing down hard.

She was running out of time.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Caitlyn rushed to help, pressing a hand against her back.

“Nothing. I’m just… a little not myself.”

“We can do this another time.”

Vi wiped the sweat off her forehead. “No, I don’t think we can.”

She took her deeper still, to the open pipework near the mines, utterly collapsed by the looks of it. Not that Vi had hoped to find her anomaly there. She walked inside the larger sewer pipe, boots thudding against metal. But Caitlyn hesitated at the entrance.

“Look, if I wanted to kill you, I’d be the one with the gun and the knife hidden beneath my jacket,” Vi pointed out, trying to control her breathing.

“Uh…that is-”

“Don’t worry about it. I’d be more concerned if a councilor was stupid enough to come here empty-handed.”

“It’s not… personal,” Caitlyn said, starting to walk with her. “My mother was murdered during the industrialists’ power vacuum. I’ve carried weapons since.”

Vi stopped, taken aback. How many ripples did it take to change an entire world? “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Caitlyn shook her head, dismissive, and looked toward the end of the sewer, where it intersected with another. “Which way to this secret, then?”

“Left. Right at the end. There’s a grate there. Look through.”

Caitlyn took out a thin, tubular lamp from her coat's pocket and cracked a match inside it, lighting up the tunnel as they walked deeper still, until finally they reached the grate. She crouched down, staring through the gaps.

“I can’t believe it.”

Vi knew already what she was seeing, the very same thing… her Caitlyn had found years ago. A rusting, wide pipe connecting to the others. A continuation of the ventilation system, but this one shut off. Sealed.

“Why would this pipe not be in the blueprints?” Caitlyn asked.

Vi saw black spots diminish her vision. “Something, something… politics.”

Caitlyn frowned, looking up at her.

“You open up this pipe, the grey is pushed further out of Zaun, into dead zones,” Vi explained quickly. “No more easy access to manipulate it.”

“Access?” Caitlyn repeated, baffled. “Are you saying the industrialists use it? To what end?”

“It’s a weapon, cupcake. What do you think?”

Caitlyn shook her head. “No. My family built this so that the people could breathe. They would never allow a pipe to be forgotten just so that… greedy overlords might use it against innocent people. They would need a key and-”

“Oh, like you haven’t made concessions with the Barons?”

“Not like this,” Caitlyn insisted.

“So why is the grey still a problem? Why haven’t you continued building more pipes yourself? Air vents? Pushed it out for good?”

“You don’t think the proposals are on the table? But new infrastructure takes time, money, equipment, specialized workers-”

“Then tell the kids struggling to breathe they need to sit tight. Tell them to their face!”

Caitlyn exhaled slowly as the words echoed around them. “We’ve given the families with young children incentive to move further up. There are stipends in place. But the problem is many still refuse the help.”

“Because your delegates don’t stand a chance next to the people actually running these streets.”

Caitlyn leaned against the wall, discouraged. “They cut corners; use fear as a tool, yet every time we try to investigate… The paper trails are clean, the tenants deny abuse or coercion, and the children swear they’ve never set foot in the factories.”

“Who’s your sheriff?” Vi asked.

“Marcus.”

Vi bit her tongue. Even if Silco wasn’t around anymore, Chem-Barons with deep pockets and enforcers with deep greed sure as hell still were. “Yeah, I’d look into that,” she said.

“I’m trying to work with you, Vi, but there’s only so much I can do with elusive talk. How do you know about this?”

Vi turned away, arms against the wall of the pipe now. It felt like her head was about to split open. She squeezed her eyes shut. Was this it? Was this the kick?

“I know it’s shit work, but you need to stick with it," she said, feeling her muscles tremble. "Stick with the people here. No one will work with you otherwise, Caitlyn, no one. I’ll show you the way. I’ll be pissed about it, I won’t trust you, I’ll push you away, but if you’re honest about helping, I’ll do it.”

“Slow down, you’re not making any sense-”

“I know these streets like the lines on your hands,” she said deliriously, flinching as bright lights started blurring her vision. “This city is everything to me. But this doesn't work... if you don't... see us."

“Vi, look at me,” Caitlyn pleaded, standing beside her. 

“I don’t think I’m gonna remember this, cupcake,” Vi mumbled as she reached out, trying to touch the lights.

“Vi!”

Ah fuck, this was starting to be a bad habit, passing out in front of her girlfriend. 

Well. So much for that. 

Vi’s thoughts went blank until what felt like a blow to the head sent her mind hurtling…

I can’t do any of this without you… Please, darling, please…

…through the shittiest fucking music.

Vi gasped for air, as if her head had been underwater. She reached for her throat and breathed, slowly finding her new footing. She clutched her head, ran a hand through her hair—red, longer—her eyes taking in her new surroundings.

She was at a table outside a small diner, sitting beneath a thick canopy while it rained around her. It was evening in Zaun, but not the Zaun she had just left. It was… quieter. Greener too, but not without its usual grit either. A mix of metals and greens, entwined. 

The diner’s music crackled through the air and she could hear some people scurrying for cover. A couple was at a nearby table, chatting over a thick cut of grilled meat in gravy. 

“We should try Brick Bay again.”

Vi looked up, eyes re-focusing as she took in Caitlyn. Gone was her councilor’s tailored garb, now practically the opposite. Caitlyn looked… like she was wearing her own damn clothes, wrapped up in a dark blue jacket with mismatched stitching, worn-out pants, her hair high up in a ponytail, a slight sheen of rain on her forehead.

And a wrapping on her hand. Bloodied at the knuckles and everything.

She sat in front of her with two pints, drinking from one immediately. Wiping the foam from the corner of her mouth. 

“If Pim lied to cover for the Baroness, I’d like to give him a piece of my mind. Besides, we have plenty of time before our next client. What do you think? Should we swing by the brothel and make a mess of it,” she gave her a wink as she took another sip, “for old time’s sake?”

Vi blinked, took in Caitlyn’s attire again, and pressed her palms over her face. “Fuck me. Give me a minute."

Chapter Text

Following her less-than-ideal wake-up the last time around, Vi knew to keep her mouth shut while Caitlyn spoke, hoping to avoid coming off as a drunk again. If she could minimize the damage she did before she settled back in her own body, that would be neat. 

“What’s wrong?” Caitlyn asked, finishing her beer. “You haven’t said a word.”

“Uh,” Vi blinked, having missed half of Caitlyn’s sentence, too busy staring at her face, noticing small scars on her nose and her forehead. “What are we doing in the bay again?”

Caitlyn frowned, glancing around. “Did you see someone when I got the drinks?”

“No, I- I’m just a little beat, that’s all.” 

“Oh. Well, we could try the brothel tomorrow then. Swing by Sochel instead and give him the photos; collect the rest of the payment.”

Vi had no idea what that meant, but nodded anyway. “Sure, let’s do that.”

The crease between Caitlyn’s brows deepened as she tried to read her now, puzzled by her behavior. But Vi had no clue how this version of her acted, let alone how she acted around Caitlyn. 

“Sorry,” she said, trying to get ahead of any questions, “I just slept like shit. I guess it’s catching up.”

“You did? Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve gone topside alone. You could’ve finished up the paperwork.”

Vi scoffed—now that , she doubted any version of herself enjoyed. “That’s probably why.”

Caitlyn chuckled. “I know what you’re doing, but you’re not getting out of it again.”

“But you love paperwork,” Vi retorted.

Caitlyn shrugged as she dropped a few coins on the table and got up. “I love listening to you complain about it more. Come on, let’s go get the photos before this drizzle turns into a downpour.” 

“Too bad, you usually nail the swamp-rat look.” 

Caitlyn laughed as she pulled her hood up. “Shut up.”

There was deep familiarity between them, so easy to tap into that Vi almost felt like a cheat. It wasn’t flirting, but it was something blurry and confusing. Vi pulled on her own hoodie before following Caitlyn into the streets of this lush, metallic Zaun.

They entered a building and headed toward mail boxes. Vi looked around, noticing a few doors to small businesses, from lawyers to loan sharks. 

Caitlyn looked through the mail and paused at a thick envelope. 

“Rent,” she monotoned, and then grimaced at the next envelope, “and sewer. Lucky us.”

Vi kept her commentary to herself, knowing she couldn’t show much confusion. This Caitlyn and her were close, that much was obvious. She followed her up another stairwell, where they stopped in front of a door that read PRIVATE INVESTIGATION. Except a T and N were missing, but Vi got the gist. 

They entered an office space, sectioned in two by a half-wall. It was cozy, but neither of them seemed to like dusting much. 

“Do you want tea?” Caitlyn asked as she threw the envelopes on a coffee table littered with other mail. She walked to a nook behind the wall. 

“Water’s fine,” Vi replied, distracted by their working space. 

There were two desks on opposite sides of the room, a bunch of file cabinets, and a giant map of Zaun and Piltover on the wall, with red thread, photos, and mugshots pinned all over it. On one desk was another stack of photos, with ATN: CLIENT SB scribbled in marker at the bottom of each one, where two people were caught in a steamy embrace, pants down and- 

Well.

Vi had to stop herself from laughing. She couldn’t fucking believe it, honestly. Caitlyn Kiramman working in a stuffy Zaun building, scraping coins with her, paying rent by busting cheats, druggies, and finding missing people. Not exactly the refined investigative work of enforcers. 

She sat down at one desk and pulled out a drawer, finding more papers and photos. Names scribbled on sticky notes, receipts for payments, thank you cards... 

“Huh.” 

It seemed like they’d carved out a market for themselves. 

“What are you doing?” Caitlyn asked, frowning. 

“Sitting?”

“At my desk?”

“Shit,” Vi got up. “Got things on my mind, sorry.”

Caitlyn looked a bit suspicious now. “Here,” she said, handing her a glass of water. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” 

“I’m fine.” 

But Caitlyn started circling around her. “No, you were fine before we went to the diner, but then I sat down and it was like you’d… gone somewhere else.”

Vi drank a quick sip and turned away. “I’m just tired.” 

“Hold on, Vi, your eyes…”

Fuck. It was what Ekko had told her at the hospital. Vi walked to her desk, trying to figure out how to get herself out of this. 

“You know what, I should head home. Sleep this off.”

Caitlyn grabbed her arm, turning her around. “Please tell me it’s not what I think.”

She looked so horrified that Vi felt dread seize her. There was no way she could figure this out, right? 

“Tell me it was some awful food you ate this morning,” Caitlyn continued. “That someone at the brothel slipped you some shimmer or- or something.”

“Missing a bunch of pieces there, cupcake,” Vi answered without thinking. 

“Cupcake?” Caitlyn repeated, nose scrunched up. 

Vi felt her cheeks heat up. Shit, how was she so bad at this? “Look, can we cut this day short?”

But instead of asking any more questions, Caitlyn cupped her cheeks. “Vi, look at me.”

“What are you doing?” Vi stammered.

“There’s only one way I can verify this and-” Caitlyn swallowed, nervous. “Don’t hold it against me, all right?”

Vi blinked as Caitlyn took a breath. “I love you,” she murmured. 

Ah, all right, so that’s what they were. Vi felt herself relax. That she could deal with. “Yeah, I love you, too,” she replied easily. 

But Caitlyn suddenly withdrew her hands and stepped back, as if the words had triggered unfathomable pain. Vi felt her heart drop at the sight. She never wanted to see that look on Caitlyn’s face. Not for anything she said or did, ever. It made her feel like the smallest person in the world. Like she’d broken the woman she loved – no matter if this Caitlyn wasn’t hers. 

“Cait?” she asked, panicking. 

Caitlyn shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. “You… Oh Vi, you did.”

“Did what?” Vi asked, baffled.

“Your eyes, the way you-” Caitlyn ran a hand over her face. “It’s so obvious!” And then she was pacing the room. “Now! In the middle of a job!” 

Vi thought she’d grown another head. “What did I do? ” 

“Not once have you ever… would you ever say you love-” Caitlyn huffed, pacing the room again. “Unbelievable.”

Vi realized she’d taken Caitlyn’s bait. Her idiot other self had never said ‘I love you’ and here she’d gone and blurted it out. 

“Well who the hell tricks a girl like that?” she asked, mildly offended. 

“Oh but you’re not just any girl, are you?” Caitlyn accused, crossing her arms. 

“I…”

“Just tell me,” Caitlyn said, impatient. “You are painfully obvious and I’m embarrassed it took me so long to see it.”

“Look, fine, maybe I’m not exactly… who you’d like, but I am Vi, just… Uh… how do I put this…”

Caitlyn hung her head. “You went through a Hexcore.”

Vi blinked. “You know about those?”

“Everyone knows about those, Violet,” Caitlyn snapped as she started rifling through papers in a cabinet. “Where did you put that file—oh why is this always such a mess?” 

She slammed the cabinet closed and pinched her nose. “Forget it. We’re going to Ekko. He’s been through it enough.”

“He has?”

Caitlyn scrutinized Vi’s face with a frown. “You don’t even know what you’re doing, do you?”

“It’s not like there’s a driver’s seat on this thing.” 

Caitlyn grabbed her hand, the office keys, and then pulled her toward the door. “I’m sorry, but we have work to do and there is no time for any of this.”

Vi allowed herself to be pushed and pulled down the hall, the stairs, and out the building. 

“You know, I don’t fucking control this,” she pointed out, oddly relieved she didn’t have to fill the shoes of a Vi she had no damn clue about. 

Caitlyn snorted. “You still swear like a merchant.”

“Huh?”

“Keep up.”

“Vi, honestly,” Caitlyn hissed as they sat in the corner of a cable car. It was half-empty, with a Yordle snoozing on one seat and a family keeping to themselves on the opposite side. “What were you thinking? I assume you were thinking?”

Vi grunted. “Sure, Cait, everything is going according to plan.” 

“How did you even- why-” Caitlyn groaned again, unable to control her frustration. “Where do you even come from?”

“You sure you wanna know?”

Caitlyn glanced at the other passengers. “No. It’s best if you didn’t… share anything.”

“I’m as confused as you are,” Vi said. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“Nobody asks for it, but still, here you are, taking over my partner.”

“She didn’t exactly put up a fight.”

Caitlyn looked taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve only done this once and I felt off right away. Puking my guts out, blurry vision, sounds all crazy. It was like she was… there, right under the surface. But soon as I got here, outside the diner, I felt… quiet. She’s not even trying.” 

Caitlyn seemed to grow distressed. “Well she’s- it’s been a difficult time. She may be… welcoming a break.” 

“Right. I’m sure she’ll turn up,” Vi said, half-convinced. 

“There’s no need to panic,” Caitlyn took a breath, trying to induce calm for her own sake rather than Vi’s. “Ekko will know what to do.”

“Nah. That doesn’t sound like a Hexcore at all.”  

Ekko was doing well for himself. He had started his own repairs shop years ago and now had three across Zaun, selling and fixing parts, fine tuning mechanicals, transportation crafts and consulting with Piltover for the ventilation system throughout Zaun. He kept community at the center of everything he did, and was still fascinated by anything that blended science and magic, though this world seemed to view the topic as taboo. 

“What then?” Caitlyn asked. They were sitting in the back room of his repair shop, smaller than Vi and Caitlyn’s office yet much cleaner and less cramped. 

“Honestly? Fragments of a Hexcore, fragments of… this anomaly, organic material, and everything in between. Somehow a soup of magic made its way into a dead mine and…” Ekko glanced at Vi, “you stepped right into it. Your bad luck or bad skill are impressive.”

“Fuck. you.”

He smirked. “Good to know you sound the same.” 

“Ekko, what do we do?” Caitlyn asked.

“Nothing,” Ekko shrugged. “Based on what she’s saying anyway, everything is up to Vi. Uh—Our Vi.”

Caitlyn looked terrified of that answer. “Surely there’s another way? A… kick in the pants? Could we get access to a Hexcore?” 

“All sealed and safeguarded,” Ekko reminded her. “Besides, I’m telling you that’s not what… this is. No way.”

Caitlyn seemed to grow paler by the second. 

“What are you not saying, Cait?” Vi asked.

“I worry she’s… reached a point where she even allowed herself to be shut out of her own mind.”

Vi shifted in her seat, uncomfortable. “It’s not… something she’d have early warning about. The last Ekko I spoke with called me a parasite… which, yeah, fits the bill. I’m just sort of hurtling around, and hers is the body I landed in.”

Ekko and Caitlyn glanced at each other.

“Look, this shit doesn’t make sense to me either, okay?” Vi said, growing equally nervous. “I just want to deal with my own problems in my own damn body.”

“How did you leave your last… uh, world?” Ekko asked. 

“I… I gave her something to fight for, I think. What’s this Vi got to be so upset about anyway?” she asked before she could stop herself. 

Caitlyn sighed while Ekko grimaced. “I think I’ll leave you both to it.” 

They went back to the office, the mood dour. Caitlyn was more withdrawn, sometimes staring at her in the cable car and then looking away, puzzled and frustrated. 

“Can you feel her at all? Anything?” she asked once they’d arrived at their desks. 

“No.”

Caitlyn dropped down in her chair with a grunt. “I should’ve… I could tell she was sinking more into the work. Acting distant. Now you’ve given her the break she wanted.”

“I’m not seeking anyone out but myself, Cait. I have no idea how this works.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound… accusatory,” Caitlyn settled on. “I should’ve seen she was struggling. In a week it'll be twelve years since…” 

“Since what?”

“I don’t know what your life is like,” Caitlyn said with a swallow. “I don’t want to upset you with the realities of this one.”

Vi could tell where it was going without the words being spoken. “I lost my sister, too.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Here it was… Well, Powder was very young.”

Vi stood up, trying to piece everything together. She looked around the office, at all the pictures and documents on the walls. “You’ve known each other that long?”

“Yes. There was… it was an explosion during a robbery. Powder and your brothers…”

“Cait, just say it,” Vi breathed out. “I can take it.”

Caitlyn joined her hands on the desk. “Powder… dropped a gem stone while you were putting up a chair against the door of the penthouse. It’s why you weren’t close enough to the blast. Powder and your brothers… died at the scene while you were severely injured. Jayce and I were able to get you help in time, but… we were too late for them.”

“Jayce?”

Caitlyn looked down. “He was banished after eight years in Stillwater. Even though it was a terrible accident, his research was unsanctioned and the gems hadn’t been stored safely. An enforcer also died from the balcony collapse. Jayce had no chance at the trial.”

“But… the Hexcore… how…?”

“What do you mean?”

“In my world, he’s the reason it even existed. But if he wasn’t able to in this world…”

“Oh. You mean he worked with Viktor?”

Vi frowned, confused, so Caitlyn elaborated: “Viktor was a scientist who furthered Jayce’s research without the council’s approval. It was only Professor Heimerdinger who caught him red-handed years later, after Viktor had grown what he called a Hexcore. One day it multiplied, and these… things were found to be pathways. People like Ekko volunteered to study them, but eventually the consensus was that they were unstable and should be sealed away from the public. They have been for years now, but we know these… other worlds still have access to ours. People like… you.”

Vi noticed a photo of Caitlyn and herself in a paper clipping. It was an article about a missing child found deep in Chem-Baron territory.

“How did we… You and I?”

Caitlyn cleared her throat. “Because Jayce was a Kiramman protégé, and the penthouse our property, my mother felt responsible for you. Vander thought it would do you good to… not be in the undercity for some time. There was too much there that would remind you of your siblings. We offered Vander a guest bedroom, but he preferred to stay on the armchair outside your room, while you recovered…” Caitlyn remembered, smiling. “Every time mother would see his feet on the armrests, she would struggle so much to conceal her grimace. What a sight that was.”

Vi turned to her, trying to imagine herself navigating Piltover at such a young age, with grief clawing at her insides. It seemed unfathomable. 

“For months you were despondent,” Caitlyn continued. “Survivor's guilt, we knew. You blamed yourself no matter what Vander would say. But with time you… opened up to me. Showed me the undercity. We grew close.”

Caitlyn’s smile faded. “Three years later Vander was murdered when Silco flooded the Lanes with shimmer.”

Vi looked away. 

“I thought I’d lose you for good. You pushed me away; kept saying you were cursed. It hurt more than anything had ever hurt in my life. I thought I’d go mad, not knowing where your grief would take you.”

Caitlyn had tears in her eyes, but didn’t stop. It was unlikely they ever spoke of this, but perhaps she needed to.

“I found you in that… fighting pit. You were so angry with me at first, because I hadn’t respected your wishes. But I couldn’t do it, Vi. Watching you lose yourself, your body breaking down, night after night… I told you I’d sign up; that it was me you’d have to fight. If you didn’t care for me anymore, what did it matter?”

“Stubborn.”

Caitlyn smiled tearfully. “That’s what you said. But it worked. I was your opponent in the pit one night and it… snapped you out of it, I think. You let me in again.”

“Cait…”

“It wasn’t the same,” she admitted. “At one point, before Vander passed, I’d thought we might… There’d been something between us. You’d… look at me differently. But that was all gone after. I accepted it, even though I…” 

“You what?” Vi murmured, heart breaking when Caitlyn brushed her tears away.

“I’ve loved you for so long, but loving you means knowing I could never tell you,” Caitlyn said with a tremble. Catharsis. “Because you will push me away so far I will lose you forever. Your parents, your sister, brothers, Vander… all loved and lost. You think it’s inevitable that who you should love, you should lose. So you don’t.” 

The worst part of it all, was that Vi understood it. She remembered the cold floor of Stillwater, clinging to the thought of finding Powder again. But on some nights—dark, long nights where the beatings had had her body in atrocious pain, she’d wondered if love wasn’t working against her. Love made you cling to reality. To survival. In those moments, all she’d wanted was to be someone else for a little bit. A different body, not so bruised, not so freezing, not so full of care, but she couldn’t, because she needed to survive this. 

And Vi could see how her counterpart would want love pummeled out of her. Her love was poison. Brought nothing but pain. 

But who the hell was she kidding? 

Was there a world, any world, where Caitlyn Kiramman didn’t make her heart pound?  

“I think I’m getting a better picture,” she said, scratching her temple. “My head’s heavier than a sack of sand though. Is there any way we can cut this day short?”

“Of course,” Caitlyn said, standing. “I’ll take you to your place.” 

It was on the outskirts of the Lanes, but Zaun looked… different. It wasn’t just the foliage and the wider streets, but the air was lighter too. The market they’d passed was still overcrowded and some shops still looked run-down, but it was the essence of the city that felt different. This was more than a change of paint or creaky cable cars, it was structural too. The colors, the character, the history seemed foreign to Vi. Like seeing a friend after twenty years apart. 

“I live here?” Vi asked, looking up at a window in the alley they were cutting through. It was on the sixth floor of a tall building, with a lush climbing plant covering half the wall. 

“Hm, and I live…” Caitlyn pointed to the window directly facing Vi’s, on the opposite building of the narrow alley they were in, “there.”

“You’re fucking kidding,” Vi snorted. “So you two just, what? Go home from work and then open the windows to start talking again?” 

Caitlyn’s mouth fell open while her cheeks went a little pink. “Well, not always . It just turned out that way.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anyway, you’re the apartment with the green door. I’ll um, let you settle in?”

“I guess.” Vi found the keys in the pocket of her jacket. “See you in a minute, cupcake.”

The apartment was a fucking mess of disastrous proportions. Vi felt her stomach sink at the sight of opened books, half-empty mugs and messy papers covering the coffee table. The cupboards had dry foods for quick meals, a grand total of two forks and two spoons, and not a single spatula to be found. 

The walls looked like Vi was back in the office, with a map of both Zaun and Piltover and ‘CHMB HS’ scribbled on various notes, whatever the hell that meant. 

This girl took her work home, and not just for shits and giggles. It was all she did. 

“Get a fucking bookcase, you nut,” Vi grunted. 

She walked to the bedroom—and ‘bedroom’ was apt, seeing as it was just a narrow room with a single bed tucked against the wall—and opened the window. She looked toward the window of the opposite building. Six feet at most separated them. She saw Caitlyn’s shadow behind the thin curtain and then the window was pushed up. 

“Seriously, have I ever jumped into your place from here?” Vi asked. 

“Why in the world would you do that?” Caitlyn asked. 

“I don’t know, being lazy? Coffee? Grab food from your pantry?”

“Not to my knowledge. But it's good to know what crosses your mind.”

“You two talk like this a lot? Because there’s a chair right here.”

“Sometimes,” Caitlyn admitted. “I don’t know why. We just enjoy it. We’ve cracked a couple cases just… spitballing like this.”

“Right. Cases. That’s why you do it.”  

Caitlyn frowned, self-conscious. “You should rest, Vi.”

“Couldn’t have said it better. Hey, do we sing each other to sleep?”

“Goodnight,” Caitlyn huffed as she closed the window. 

Vi laughed to herself, walking around the apartment to try to make sense of her life here. She felt a slight itch in her back and tried to reach it, but grew frustrated. She took off her top and looked at her body in the small mirror of the bathroom. 

Instead of tattoos, a scattering of long, blue scars stretched over her entire back and arms. A perpetual reminder of the day she’d lost her siblings. Vi felt a deep well of emotion, knowing that her counterpart stared at the past every time she saw herself like this. 

She put on a loose tee and looked at the maps again, finger tracing over the thread that connected locations and faces. Ugly goons with code names and known associations. 

It wasn’t all that different from what her Caitlyn did at the station, though Vi would guess they didn’t do things by the lawful book here. Not that that had ever stopped Caitlyn when she was truly determined. 

Vi noticed a photograph of Caitlyn and her—well her—on top of a pile of books on the cramped desk. They looked younger, with fewer cuts and bruises, a bit less jaded, clinking two beers together. FIRST CASE was written in faded marker at the bottom. 

If Caitlyn was looking at her bottle, Vi was looking at her with the softest grin. 

“No room for love, hm?” Vi sighed. “You’re hopeless.”

She stood in the quiet for a moment, then rubbed a hand over her tired face and went to bed. Tomorrow she’d figure out what would get this girl to wake up. 

Do you remember when we went to that bar with that awful band? You said you were just checking what the competition was doing. We had so much fun that night, with our ridiculous masks. We danced to the terrible music, we drank, we kissed, and nothing else mattered. I was just yours and you were mine.   

Hold on for us, darling. Please.

Vi threw the ball against the wall in front of her desk, catching it when it bounced back. She threw it again, feeling numb. It wasn’t like sleep had come easy. She could still hear fragments of Caitlyn’s voice—her Caitlyn, she was sure of it. But her tone was different, tainted with urgency and pain.

Was it real? She’d seemed so close in her dream, her hand so warm, yet when Vi had opened her eyes, she’d found herself in the small room of her emotionally stunted twin. It pissed her off, to be honest. 

Caitlyn, who had little to say this morning, was observing her from her own desk, hand pressed against her temple while the thump thump of the ball filled the room. 

“Is that… necessary?” she eventually asked. 

Vi caught the ball and stopped. “No.”

“Can I help with something?”

Vi glanced at her, sitting deep in her chair with little care for poise, fighting wraps around her hands and wrists, her ponytail high and loose. This Caitlyn would balk at an enforcer uniform. It was puzzling how that worked. 

“Did I teach you that?” Vi asked, motioning toward her own wraps.

Caitlyn nodded, flexing her fingers. “I went into the fighting pit with bare hands. When you realized you were fighting me, I think you were angrier I was so… ill-prepared. You knocked me on my back in one move and then told me to follow you,” she chuckled as she remembered. 

Vi briefly wondered what she would’ve done if… if she’d seen Caitlyn in that pit. But that time felt like a hazy memory now. One of the worst spirals of her life shrouded in liquor and despair; the same day repeated over and over, only the bruises and the hangovers didn’t reset themselves, they just got fucking worse.

“We trained together a lot after that,” Caitlyn continued. “You showed me how to protect myself. I think the pit made me realize how… vulnerable I was. Growing up, I’d just assumed I’d have a rifle on me at all times, but there I was, trying to confront you, knowing nothing about hand-to-hand.”

“Did you think I’d hurt you?”

“No,” Caitlyn replied, but then changed her mind, “Well, I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted you to look me in the eyes, because all else had failed.” 

Vi squeezed the ball in her hand. She wasn’t sure she could’ve met her Caitlyn’s eyes in that pit. Probably would’ve thought she was seeing things again. 

“And now you’re here, nearly a decade later, working together, living together—let’s be honest—and now what?” Vi asked. “You think she’s this clueless?”

“Vi…”

“What’s this if not love, Cait?” 

Caitlyn cleared her throat. “She doesn’t… play dumb, if that’s what you’re asking. We both know we have something sincere. Rare. We work well together, like two cogs in a machine.”

“It’s not the same. I know because I-” Vi couldn’t tell her. It would hurt her, perhaps. “I just know.”

“There’s nothing wrong with… with a platonic relationship,” Caitlyn said, defensive. 

Vi laughed, because honestly, what else could she do? 

“You’ve seen yourself, right? In a mirror?”

Caitlyn rolled her eyes. “Are you this brash in your world?” 

“Yeah, I am, and some people happen to like that,” Vi said, meeting her eyes with intent. “Cut the bullshit, Cait. You can’t lie to me. There’s nothing wrong with this , no, but only if you’re both on the same page. Except you’re not. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“It’s… it works, Vi.”

“Really? So…” Vi stood, walking toward Caitlyn. “If she did this… if she went over to you, told you she was sick of this crap,” Vi leaned down and grabbed the armrests of Caitlyn’s chair, trapping her, “that she wanted more, that she wanted to kiss you,” she said, voice dropping as she closed the space between them, lips just inches away, “You’d tell her to back off?”

Caitlyn’s cheeks had gone pink and her eyes wide. She stuttered on her words, flustered, “I, I’d wonder if she took shimmer.”

“Cait,” Vi sighed, cupping her cheek. A sharp sting between her ears made her grimace, but she continued: “You think you have to hide this, but you don’t.”

“I do. I do,” Caitlyn replied. 

“Not to me,” Vi told her softly. “Tell me what this is, between you.” 

“It’s half of what I want to give,” Caitlyn confessed, trembling. 

Vi pulled away. She touched her own forehead and felt a pearl of sweat. A slight headache started pulsing. 

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Caitlyn brushed her tears away, looking lost. “If you knew how many times I’d thought that to myself, only to… to hear her talk about someone else the next day.”

“You have to tell her. Tell her or show her. But don’t live like this forever.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t lose her.”

“Don’t you see you have nothing to lose? If she’s your best friend, your partner, you’ll work this out together.”

“And if we don’t?” Caitlyn asked, looking up. 

Vi leaned against the desk. “If she lets you go, then I don’t know this girl at all.”

They were sitting in the back of a Piltover bar at a small booth, the smell of sweet smoke filling the air around them. The music wasn’t loud, crackling in the background. It was a quaint place, with greenery and soft neons entwined together. 

“Is this the crux of the job then? Sit and wait?”

Caitlyn ate a peanut, then sipped on her drink. “Pretty much.”

“And you’re not bored of me?”

Caitlyn smiled. “Amazing, isn’t it? Somehow we don’t run out of anything to say.”

“Hm.” Vi looked around, keeping an eye out for a ‘thin redhead with a mech arm’ who was stepping out on his wife. Sounded pretty wearisome to Vi, but apparently this was the shit that paid the bills. Their bread and butter. 

“What’s with the maps on our walls?” Vi asked. “Looks a little more involved than private affairs.”

Caitlyn glanced around, keeping her voice quieter. “Chem-Barons. We keep track of certain things; shipments, factory deals. Send a couple anonymous tips to the blue caps.”

“Huh. Who’s their sheriff?”

Caitlyn arched her brow. “If you’re worried she’s as corrupt as Marcus was, don’t be. You’ve—Vi’s already done all the background checks she could. She’s cleaner than most and for now that’s enough.”

Vi hesitated with her next question: “What about your parents?”

“What about them?” Caitlyn asked, looking toward the bar. 

“Do they uh… approve of this? Your job?”

Caitlyn snorted. “Approve? What am I? A blushing debutante?”

Vi sat back, amused to hear Caitlyn speak in ways she wasn’t used to. She drank another sip of beer, feeling… at ease in this role. The uniform had always felt like wearing another skin, but this was… closer to who she felt like. 

“Are you and I…” Caitlyn started, hesitant, “in any of these worlds, are we…”

“I could tell you, if you really want to know.”

Caitlyn ate another peanut, thinking about it before she eventually shook her head. “No, forget it. I think it would be terribly painful either way.” 

Vi nodded in understanding. “For all intents and purposes, this is it, though, isn’t it? A life together?”

Caitlyn looked down, speaking quietly, “I dream about you with eyes wide open, Vi. During the day, at work, in the streets, when I buy food or run from the rain. When I hear a good story, I think of the ways I should tell you, to make you laugh. Trust me, I wish… it was that easy to be content with what we do have, but every day you find new ways to make me… fall a little deeper, even when I swear it shouldn't be possible anymore."

If it was a confession that Caitlyn couldn’t allow herself otherwise, but would in this moment, Vi could only listen. 

“You see these women and you tell me all about them, and I feel like… every fiber of me sinks. But you’re my best friend. My partner. I put on a smile and I encourage you. I pretend I saw someone too.”

“Do you?”

Caitlyn chuckled in a self-deprecating way. “I try. The last date was a disaster.”

“What happened?”

Caitlyn looked away, stuffing more peanuts in her mouth to occupy herself. “Oh, you know… the kind of thing that happens when your body is desperate to be with someone else.”

Vi arched her brow. “Cait…?”

“You’re not going to make me say it, are you?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Caitlyn glared at her. “I said your name. Happy?” 

“Fucking delighted,” Vi smirked. “Over dinner?”

Caitlyn was quiet. 

“Cait... when d'you say it?”

“Shut up. You know well what I meant.”

Vi felt like the smuggest girl in the world, but kept it to herself. It wasn’t really about her after all, and she could tell Caitlyn was embarrassed enough as it was. 

“So it’s not working out for either of you.”

“We have something solid. Change means breaking things that work.”

“I’m not chickenshit,” Vi pointed out. “At least I don’t believe so.”

“No, but you are stubborn. We made a bet, you and I, before Vander passed. You bet that someone like me could never fall for someone like you.” 

“And?”

Caitlyn smiled. “I’d already had. You owe me quite the sum, darling… with interest.”

Vi chuckled. “Cait… Nobody makes a bet like that with their friend.” 

Caitlyn shrugged, unconvinced.

“I’m really not that precious,” Vi insisted. “I don’t care what world this is, I know I can take a push anywhere.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“You deserve to be happy. If that’s not… with her, then you need to look for it anyway.”

“You really aren’t the same at all.”

“Right, I’m hotter in every way.” 

Caitlyn laughed. “A little more open, that’s true. Not entirely unattractive.”

Vi winked at her, sipping on her beer and looking around again. Their guy seemed a little shy. 

“And what about your life?” Caitlyn asked. “Terrible predicament aside.”

Vi shrugged. 

“Oh come on, I’ve given you the keys to my soul and I just get a shrug in return?”

“Sorry, no, it’s just… I made a mess of things before this shit happened to me.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t tell you. I can’t even tell her.”

“Your… partner?”

“Hm.”

“Well, are you happy?” Caitlyn gently asked. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. It’s just…” Vi scratched a dent in the wood of the table, recalling the stupid argument they’d been having for weeks. “Now she wants us to leave. Just pack what we need and travel. She wants us to see all these regions I’ve never even heard of. Clean the house up and give the key to her dad.”

“Oh she sounds… dreadful, Vi. To want to see the world with her lover; what a twit,” Caitlyn teased.  

“It’s not that,” Vi huffed, acknowledging how it sounded. “It’s what she said. How we could… settle somewhere else. Demacia or Ionia.”

“Beautiful regions.”

“You’ve been?”

“Not for you to know...”

Vi sighed. “My whole life’s been Zaun. I always thought I could… make a difference there. Help clean up the Lanes; build something good and lasting. And now just as we’re getting somewhere, she wants to leave. Like all right, job done, we can just forget about it.”

Caitlyn rested her chin on her hand. “Are you sure that’s what she wants? If your whole life has been one place, maybe she just wants to open it up for you.” 

“She said… there’s more out there. And all I could hear was… More than me. Than us.”

“And here you are talking to a stand-in. Telling me my Vi won’t avoid the truth.”

“Hey—ouch,” Vi frowned. 

Caitlyn gave her a soft smile. “Sounds to me you also have some talking to do.”

“Don’t we make a pair, eh?”

“Oh but it would never work, darling. I think you’re mad about this girl.”

“You’re one to talk. Kind of embarrassing, actually.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, I’m a catch but, sheesh, you’re obsessed.”

Caitlyn scoffed, about to protest, when something caught her eye. “All right, Violet. Time to put a pin in it. Do you have the camera?”

Vi noticed their guy sneaking at the back of the bar, his face obscured by a hoodie, as discreet as a bullet through glass. 

“Yep.”

Vi had seen enough bare fucking cheeks for the week. Caitlyn took the pictures in the dingy alley and grabbed her arm, dragging her away from the scene. 

“That’s it?” Vi asked as they walked back to the office. 

“That’s our bills paid for this month,” Caitlyn nodded. 

“And that’s a two-person job?”

“Well, no, we usually split these.” 

“Who’s the client?” 

“A Ferros member. Anonymous. You must know how they are.”

Vi nodded. “Guess this won’t make the paper?”

“I think our little pantless friend won’t see much of an inheritance,” Caitlyn chuckled. “You don’t step out on a House like that without consequences.”

“This isn’t really cleaning up the streets,” Vi muttered. 

“No, it’s not. But we take these jobs to afford the ones that don’t pay.”

“Sorry, I just don’t like meddling in this petty shit.”

Caitlyn shrugged. “Be that as it may, we need food and a roof too. Look, it doesn’t always have to feel good. It just has to keep us in business so those maps of real crime aren’t torn down because we didn’t make rent. Missing persons, shimmer hot spots—those don’t cover much.”

“Hm.” 

She felt a twitch in her jaw and a sharp pang in her head. She stopped, leaning against the wall. “Fuck.”

“What is it?” Caitlyn rushed to her. “Do you-”

“Yeah, yeah. Something like that.”

“Well, wh-what do we do?”

Vi smiled, feeling a little woozy. “Wanna get rid of me this fast?”

“No, I’d just prefer it if you passed out on your bed, not on hard ground.”

“Ah, I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

Vi squeezed her eyes shut and took deep breaths, trying to cling to the feeling of… well, that was hard to explain. 

“I’ll walk you home,” Caitlyn said. “Then I’ll go develop these and meet up with our last two clients on my own.”

“I can go, Cait.”

“No, it’s just collecting payment. I’d rather if you took care of yourself, please. You’re in no state to work.”

“If you knew the shit I’ve pushed through in my life...”

“And your partner is all right with that? You putting yourself in harm’s way? Ignoring your injuries, your pain?”

Vi blinked. “Uh. Well, it’s not that s-”

“That’s what I thought,” Caitlyn cut in. “We’re going home.” 

Vi fell in and out of sleep, staring at the ceiling when she woke up near sunset. Her head was pounding, the dull throb now a persistent ache. 

“Come on…” she murmured. “What do you have to be so scared of?”

She walked to the bathroom, splashing water on her face. She took off her top, looking at the scars again; the uneven lines branching out like a mangled tree across her skin. They were rough to the touch, slightly raised.

Vi met her stare in the mirror. She could tell what Ekko and Caitlyn had meant by “different” for the first time. She just looked fucking lost, honestly. 

“Look, there’s always an excuse,” she muttered, feeling like an idiot for talking to herself, but what else was she supposed to do? The days were passing and her body, her real body, was surely starting to heal. “You want something badly but you think you don’t deserve it. I get it.”

She grit her teeth, hands tight on the edge of the sink. “But you’re lying to yourself, you’re lying to her, and everyone ends up hurting more. Is that the plan, genius?”

Vi felt a violent sting in the back of her head. She clung to the sink tighter, knowing nausea would follow. Dizzy, she started breathing faster. 

“Yeah, fuck you too,” she grunted.

A knock on the front door dragged her out of bed a few hours later, well into the evening. 

“Vi, you look awful,” Caitlyn said. She was holding a bag and looked exhausted herself. 

“Thanks, I love when you sugarcoat it for me.”

“I brought you dinner. Meat and gravy from Jericho’s.”

Vi looked into the bag and licked her lips, starving. “Some things just don’t change, eh? Come in.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to-”

“Two chairs at that tiny table, two forks; don’t tell me you’re not used to it.”

“Fine,” Caitlyn didn't argue, closing the door behind her. 

They sat at the table, which was really just a square slab of wood in the kitchen space. Caitlyn had put the grilled fish on two plates and grabbed glasses like she was in her own home. 

Vi pressed her fingers against her scalp, trying to work out the sharp pain in her skull. 

“How is it?” Caitlyn asked. 

“Like getting stabbed in the eye.”

“The meat.”

“Oh, the best, obviously.”

“Hm.” Caitlyn sunk her teeth into the meat and smiled. “That was the first place you took me to, in Zaun.”

“No shit?” Vi asked, licking her fingers. “Sounds familiar.”

Caitlyn arched her brow, but made no comment. 

“You do this a lot?” Vi asked, motioning toward the food. 

“I think we single handedly fund Jericho’s retirement at this point, yes.”

Vi laughed. “What made you start it? The business?”

“Vi took me to the sump, once, where she used to live. It was already going to ruin, but there were still people there. Families." Caitlyn wiped her mouth with a napkin. "We learned a child had gone missing—a little girl with eyes like gold. We tipped off enforcers, but the sheriff—Marcus at that time—didn’t investigate. Just a runaway was the sentiment. So we followed the leads ourselves. Days, weeks… It became an obsession. We started mapping out where the Chem-Barons hid, where the refineries operated. We spoke to tenants, to factory workers, and then when talking didn’t help anymore, we stopped trying to follow rules and conventions. I think I was still clinging to how I was raised—to believe in justice, in laws. But the Barons make their laws. So, we played their game, talking with our fists. I had to learn how to be rougher, but you—Vi helped with that. Still does.”

“And the girl?” Vi asked, wondering if-

“Isha,” Caitlyn smiled. “We found her on a factory floor forced to work for Chross. They needed a small body to intercept messages in the pneumatic pipes. We managed to get her out; reunite her with her parents. Chross moved the factory again, but we’ve kept an eye on her these last few years. She’s just started helping Ekko in his shops actually; paints and tweaks things.”

Vi smiled at the thought, remembering her fondly. 

“So, you see, those cases… make the rest worth it,” Caitlyn explained. 

“Yeah,” Vi agreed. “Wasn’t so bad, either. Kinda fun, even.”

Caitlyn chuckled. “Trust me, after years of waiting to catch them with their pants around their ankles, it does get a little old.”

“Well, the bar was nice. The company too.”

Caitlyn hummed, catching her eyes. “I wonder what your partner would think of this.”

Vi felt her cheeks grow hot. “Probably kick your ass, honestly.”

“Oh, really,” Caitlyn laughed. “She wouldn’t try to… snipe me, then?” 

Vi shook her head. “You’re not subtle. I know what you’re trying to do, but I’m not saying a thing.”

Caitlyn shrugged innocently. 

Vi pulled her window open, letting some fresh air in as she stretched out her limbs. Dinner had been nice, even if her raging headache was starting to feel debilitating. She splashed water on her face again, trying to breathe slowly, hoping for black spots or colorful spots or anything else to happen.

“Vi?”

She walked to the window, seeing Caitlyn in her own apartment. “Yeah?”

Caitlyn showed her two outfits. One a tailored suit, the other a plunging dress. Black. Revealing. Vi’s mouth fell open. 

“Which one?” Caitlyn asked.

“I’m taken, cupcake.”

“It’s not for you, darling.”

“You want this idiot to go mad?”

“Yes, I do.” 

Vi glanced between them and swallowed. “Dress, with the suit jacket on top.”

Caitlyn arched a brow, then smiled. “Clever. Thank you.”

“Yup.” 

“Goodnight.”

“Night.”

Vi sighed, falling back in bed. Well damn. She’d have to ask her Caitlyn if she could dust off the little black number one of these days. 

They spent their day in the office, throwing the ball at each other, talking about possible hideouts they could check. Caitlyn was telling her about a Baron overseeing heavy shimmer trafficking in the brothel when Vi suddenly felt a jolt in her gut. 

She keeled over, clutching her stomach. “Fuck!” she gasped in pain. 

Caitlyn was by her side in a second, holding her waist. “What can I do?” she said, deep worry in her tone. 

Vi’s skin felt hot and her vision cloudy, like she’d stepped behind a steam machine. She needed to get out of here, now . 

“Look, I’ve got an idea, it’s a shot in the dark and you’re not gonna-” Vi groaned at the painful throb in her head, “-not gonna like it.”

“Anything,” Caitlyn said. 

“Do you trust me?”

Caitlyn held her eyes and nodded. “Yes.”

Vi stood on shaky legs, then put her hands on her waist. “Dance with me,” she murmured. 

Caitlyn frowned but held her close anyway. Vi nuzzled her neck and closed her eyes, imagining her Caitlyn, wistful and longing, missing every piece of her, how she fit in her arms. Caitlyn allowed it, sinking into it, hands tentative on her back, gentle and slow. 

Then Vi pulled back and nudged her nose with hers. She angled her face to the side, like she was going to kiss her. 

She felt Caitlyn tremble in her arms, but trust overrode worry and guilt. Intimate, close. None of them with the right person, yet knowing each other like no other. 

Vi smiled as black spots blurred her vision. Finally, you damn idiot.  

“Trust me, cupcake, the wait is worth it,” she whispered a hairbreadth away from her lips before feeling herself fade and black out.

Ekko thinks you’re… in there, somewhere. I don’t understand it, but I know you’re fighting this. I just wish I could fight it with you.   

“Catch this!”  

Vi opened her eyes with a groan. She closed them back right away, blinded by a ray of sunlight. She felt grass beneath her fingers; the petals of a few small flowers. 

She was lying on her back, as if she’d gone to sleep here. There was the trickling sound of water nearby and the shouts of children.  

Vi stood on shaky legs, clutching her face. This never got any easier. She felt her body and sighed. Definitely not hers. Her hair was short, maybe shorter than she’d ever had it. Her clothes were different, dark colors and practical gear. Little pouches on a belt around her waist. 

“Woo-hoo!”   

She looked around, watching a group of kids riding a hovercraft. Dismounting it fast, playing around with it. The air was pure; clean. She immediately saw the large, towering tree from the Firelights’ hideout. The maze of sewers around them. Bright paints on the walls. 

“Damn, sis, that nap time took you out.”

Vi spun around. “Jinx,” she breathed, her throat tight.

And then she closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms around her sister. 

“Uh, gee-” 

Vi let out a choked cry, her entire body trembling. She pulled back to cup her cheek, taking in those wide, blue eyes, her choppy short hair. 

“What’s up with you? And did you just say jinx, weirdo?”

Vi threw her arms around her sister again. “I miss you, I miss you,” she broke down. Nothing else mattered but this. This feeling she’d been without for five years. 

She waited for the quip. The push. But Jinx—Powder—wrapped her arms around her waist. Her voice softened. “Okay, Vi. I’m right here. Not going anywhere without you.” 

Chapter Text

It didn’t take long before Vi was caught up. 

Zaun was at war with Piltover, who had allied itself with a division of Noxians led by Ambessa. They ruled the streets with an iron fist, but the Firelights had grown in number and had their own alliances, albeit precarious, with the more level-headed industrialists who knew the total destruction of Zaun would be their ruin. 

This warfare had been going on for years, as far as Vi could pick up on, with Ekko and Powder emerging as the leaders of the Firelights. There were several hideouts across the city now, deep in the sewers, with a complex underground network extending far and wide. 

It was a resistance. 

And Vi had stepped right into the boots of a unit leader. At least that was the impression she got from some color-codes and the way a few Firelights spoke to her. 

Vi followed Powder around with her mouth shut, knowing a mistake here wasn’t like a mistake in the opulent backyard of a gala. These people—her sister, her friends—were fighting for their lives. For their families and their futures. There was no time for anything else, let alone her incomprehensible foray through different worlds. No one made any mention of her eyes, too focused on their own tasks at hand and the planning in the war room. 

It was there Vi caught a glimpse of herself in a cracked mirror, finding black hair in a choppy, short cut. Like she’d buzzed it all off and it was just now growing out, but her other self didn’t want to see any hint of color. 

She’d done it to herself for the pitfights, shedding who she was for who she thought she had to be, but this face didn’t look angry. It just looked empty. 

“Our people are on sub-level 20,” Ekko’s voice cut through, hardened and to the point. 

Vi approached the table, eyes on the large map spread out before them. It was a blueprint of Stillwater, with exit points and every guardpost that existed. The fortress of stone and steel had weak spots. 

Vi glanced around, finding familiar faces—Scar, Sevika, Gert—and the battle-ready expressions of others she didn’t recognize, but certainly knew well in this world. This was a room of people with the highest level of trust in each other. 

“Our three officers on the inside will be sounding the alarms on level 10, 20, and 30,” he continued, fingers pointing at each level. “Enforcers and Noxians will head up while our boots on the ground enter from the main sewer, after our divers set off the underwater explosives to open the grates.”

“The elevators will be jammed by our officers,” Powder took over, “but they have emergency backups coming from the top. We’ll have ten minutes at most before we’re figured out. That’s when our airship and our hoverboarders come in. While the Noxians target the air, our siblings will be led back to the boat.” 

“The boat will be heading straight to our sewer line off the harbour,” Ekko said, moving on to the map of Zaun. “We’ll be wading through the toxic rejects from factory 14, so triple-check that your masks are sealed. There’ll be spare breathers onboard.”

“That’s 57 people back home,” Powder said, reminding them of the stakes. “57 families reunited. And a reminder to Piltover that there is no cage strong enough or deep enough to keep us in!”  

The room erupted in agreement together, strengthening their resolve. 

Vi felt a painful mix of pride and bitterness. It was a difficult thing to witness the leadership of her sister. How the people in this room looked at her and listened to her, knowing her Powder had never had this. Jinx had become a symbol, but the little girl Vi remembered cradling in her arms as a child had never grown up to be this woman.

Here she needed no shimmer, no gadgets, only the power of her voice. 

And Vi could tell her sister was hopeful, though pragmatism made it difficult. It was unlikely the prisoners of war had all survived. But hope was all they had, and they’d fight for every last one of them. 

“Gert, Vi, are we clear on the timing at the docks?” Ekko asked them discreetly. 

Vi met his eyes and nodded. All there was to do was take over the boat that delivered Stillwater’s monthly supplies, infiltrate the sub-levels through the sewers, rush down twenty levels in the theatre of her cruelest nightmares, free their people, and make it back to base. 

All the while making sure not to reveal she was really just a damn bartender these days.

What the fuck could go wrong?

To lead the Firelights who followed her was no easy feat. Vi evaded questions and avoided making major suggestions, struggling to keep up. It was shit timing for this world’s Vi to have checked out, but it was no use avoiding the reality now. She was going on a mission.

There was something eerie about preparing for the night’s task while children still ran around, laughing and playing. The contrast of heavy weaponry and explosives being passed around while laughter echoed around the pipes and steel houses wasn’t lost on her. 

Their joy was equally at stake. 

Vi found two Firelights around a burn barrel, smoking as they kept the fire alive with tinder and paper. 

Something caught her eye. Just a glimpse of a face that had her stopping short. 

“Mind if I join?” she asked them. 

The woman nodded. She had a kind, older face, with thick gray hair pulled back in a braid. “Sure, Vi. Got any jokes for us today?”

Vi’s mouth ticked at that. A jokester, huh? She shook her head. “I’m all out.”

“Ah, figures,” the woman replied. “Maybe when we celebrate tomorrow.” 

It bothered Vi that they were so friendly with her, but she didn’t recognize their faces at all. 

The man took another scrap of paper and dropped it in the fire. 

Vi froze, watching with bated breath as the eyes of the woman she loved stared back at her, flames licking at her stern face until it was gone completely. 

“You got any more of those?” Vi asked him. 

He gave her a torn poster. “Best use for it after target practice.” 

Vi stared at the faded poster of Caitlyn standing next to Noxians. Unity, hope and prosperity—that was the tagline at the bottom. Vi had seen something like it before, and never wanted to see it again, but this was a side of Caitlyn they’d both had to reckon with. You didn’t hide from your actions, no matter how coated in grief they’d been. It had taken weeks of conversations, of late night whispers, of tears, of apologies, to untangle every facet of their pain, anger, and even resentment. But they had come out of it stronger, committed to each other and their future. 

But here... there was a heavy weight on Vi’s chest, like she was missing a crucial piece of the picture. 

“Hey,” Powder said as she passed by. “You okay?”

“Yeah, uh-” 

Powder glanced at the poster and frowned. She took Vi’s arm, dragging her away. 

“Never were a good liar, sis.” 

They stopped by the entrance of a house covered in sheets of steel and colorful, patched up fabrics. 

“What are you looking at that for?” Powder asked. 

“Just… wondering how we got here,” Vi replied, a lump in her throat. She couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong in this world. That this body’s grief ran deeper than anything else. That the other Vi was keeping her pain to herself, because revealing it would be betraying her people. 

“Look, I know losing your informant changed you,” Powder murmured. “That they meant more to you than you’ll ever tell me. But this obsession with revenge is getting too personal. The commander died in the factory explosion.”

Vi could’ve puked. 

But somehow she’d expected it. While a ringing grew in her ears, she tried to focus on Powder’s voice.  

“We found her tags and she hasn’t been seen in two months. Kiramman is ash, Vi, just like she deserved.”

Vi didn’t know what was worse: Powder saying those words or Powder saying them expecting her to be relieved by them.

“I know she killed your informant,” Powder continued, looking to reach her. “I know how bad it hurts that she didn’t face consequences living, but you’ve gotta stop hunting her ghost now. Please, Vi. We need you tonight more than ever. You’re our wall.”

Vi felt tears wet her cheeks, which Powder brushed away. 

“Long night ahead,” Powder said. “Best rest up, okay? I’ll meet you at the Main tonight?” 

Vi nodded mutely. As Powder walked away, she looked down at the poster again. 

There was no part of this body that felt anger or hatred at the sight of Caitlyn’s face. It was a hollow, confused despair.

Vi had a feeling she needed to figure out what her counterpart had been up to away from everyone else. 

But first there were prisoners to free. 

It didn’t surprise Vi that everything went according to plan. This was no last-minute mission based on reckless intuition. It was months in the making; months of studying the shipment route, the pattern of the searchlights on the water, the changing of guards, the location of every pipe, and the habits of every Enforcer on rotation. 

While Powder and Ekko waited for the signal to come from the air, Vi and Gert led the charge from the boat and into the sewers at the back of Stillwater. They waded through with their masks firmly sealed, found their way to a stairwell, and rushed down toward the depths of hell as alarms started blaring all around them.

Stillwater was officially on high alert. But Firelights were the masters of chaos and confusion.

Not one for guns, Vi still knew how to use hers when they charged the first guard room. There was no time to think as Firelights swarmed the halls and picked up every Enforcer weapon along with the keys to the cells. The bulk of Enforcers had already rushed up, told the danger was on the upper levels, and now the bottom stragglers were sitting ducks. 

“-20, go, go, go!” Gert ordered as they rushed into the prison hall. 

Their friends rattled the bars of their cells, yelling in relief, some of them thin and beaten, but with hope raging in their eyes. They gave the strongest ones weapons, and the weakest ones were carried away. 

Vi heard her own heartbeat pounding away. She hadn’t expected the shock from setting foot in here again. And it was her own revulsion—not this body’s. Her own demons curling inside her gut. 

But there was another feeling. 

She looked toward the stairwell and felt something scream at her to head further down. It was her own instinct; that little voice she’d had her entire life, telling her when to fight back, when to pull away, when to trust herself. 

“Vi!” Gert called out as the freed prisoners were led upstairs. “What are you waiting for?!”

Vi looked between her and the stairwell before bolting down. “Get them to the boat!”

“Vi!” 

-40

She’d stared at the painted number on the wall so many times that sometimes she closed her eyes and still saw it. 

The depths of this miserable prison hadn’t changed, as dark and daunting as it’d always been, surrounded by the thick stone that kept the water out but not the cold or the dampness. Not the mold or the smells of brine and rot. 

There’d never been a night she hadn’t been scared in here, and there’d never been a night she hadn’t coated that fear with bravado. Pounding the walls to make herself look big. To cover the distant shouts with the slamming of her fists and the cracks of her knuckles. 

Vi’s chest tightened with dread, but this was all her. This body had no knowledge of this place. No fear of it. And maybe…

Maybe there was a reason for her presence. Something she knew that… that this Vi didn’t. 

She couldn’t explain why she needed to be here, just that she did. 

Vi walked by each cell, finding them empty but not clean. Old blood and vomit stained the stone floors, leaving behind a coppery, sickly smell. 

She stopped in her tracks, frozen in front of the one cell that remained closed. She looked inside, hoping her mind was playing a trick on her, and yet hoping it was true too. 

There was a lump on the floor. A body covered in a cape. Long, thin legs sticking out. Vi bolted down the hall, one singular thought in mind:

Keys. 

Vi swiped them from a dead guard and was back inside the cell in a flash.

She pushed her mask up. 

“I’m here, I’m here,” she repeated, cold sweat sliding down her back. Hands trembling as she lit up a tube-light and threw it to the side, illuminating the prisoner’s face. 

It was Caitlyn. Her Cait with a makeshift bandage over her eye, and maybe that was what made it worse, that she looked so much like the woman Vi wanted to get back to. But her face was gaunt and dirty, her lips dry and dehydrated. She'd been beaten, and then abandoned. 

Vi kneeled by her, cradling her head, brushing her hair back. Caitlyn let out a breathy whimper. 

“Cait, it’s me, it’s Vi. Please wake up, for me, for us, please, please–”

“Vi…?” she murmured, blinking several times, as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing. 

Her voice jolted Vi’s body like nothing else. A flare of pain shot through her skull. Not now. Not now. 

“Yeah, baby, I’m here,” Vi answered, holding her body close, her eyes filling with tears. She had to fight it, she had to. She had to get them on the boat. 

“I’m getting us out of here,” she swore, her chest cracking open after all. It felt like her saying the words and at the same time not at all, like her other self was bursting through, coming alive. “Fuck, I’ll bury them. I’ll bury them all.”

A singular sense of wrath gripped her insides. The realization that all this time Caitlyn had been a prisoner, left to wither in this cell without food or light. 

Caitlyn reached out for her, hand quivering when she touched her chin. “Water…” she begged. 

Vi nodded, reaching for the canteen she’d swiped with the keys. She brought it to Caitlyn’s lips, gentle and careful. Caitlyn struggled with it at first, but then gripped the canteen with the rest of her strength. She drank desperate, long gulps, until she’d emptied it and started shivering. 

“Hold on for me,” Vi said.

There wasn’t a second to waste. Vi lifted her body in her arms, heart sinking at how light Caitlyn felt, and ran to the stairs. 

She knew Stillwater was looking like a battlefield now. That more boots were on the way. But Caitlyn’s life was all that mattered in that instant. After countless stairs, every muscle in Vi’s body burned with exertion. She waded through thigh-deep water with Caitlyn in her arms, finding Gert near the busted grate.

She was leading their people toward the boat, where they climbed the rope ladders. Firelights onboard pulled up the weakest of them and passed on breathers to wear.  

There were explosions and rapid-fire bullets whistling in the air above; Enforcers scrambling to take out the air assault led by Powder and Ekko. 

Gert gripped Vi’s arm, glancing at Caitlyn’s face. Her features twisted in anger. “What the fuck are you thinking?”

“She was in there rotting too,” Vi explained, feeling desperate. “You have to let me take her.”

“Take her?!” Gert repeated, fuming. “Take her to our hideout, to our kids—you can’t be serious!” 

“She betrayed them!” Vi erupted, feeling it had to be the truth. It had to be. “Why else would she be here?”

“Too little, too late!” Gert yelled as an explosion ripped through the sky. 

“She was my informant, Gert,” Vi pleaded. “I know it. Let me through.”

Gert released her arm, eyes a fiery blaze. “Hide her face and stay in the hold if you don’t want them ripping her apart. She sets a foot in our sewers and I’ll put a bullet in her myself, are we fucking clear?” 

Vi took off her mask and put it on Caitlyn’s face. 

“We’re clear.”

It felt like a dream. Long and short at the same time. Vi found a tight corner in the hold and cracked a light-tube nearby. 

She exhaled deeply, feeling the boat sway as they headed toward their destination. 

Caitlyn groaned awake, having slipped in and out of consciousness. She was weak, and Vi knew she needed to find food and a doctor quickly. 

“It’s okay,” Vi said, caressing the side of her face. “I’m here.”

“You’re different…” Caitlyn murmured, looking up at her in the dim light. 

Vi pushed the mask up gently, making sure not to move the bandage over Caitlyn’s eye. She flinched anyway. The wound seemed recent, like Caitlyn had had to tear a piece of her own clothing to cover it. 

“Save your strength.”

Caitlyn looked around, then back at her. There was something haunting about her expression. 

“Am I dreaming?” she asked. 

Vi bit her lip, fighting a scream deep within. The strength of her feelings surprised her, torn between immense relief and rage. 

“No. No, Cait, I’m real. This is real. We’re getting you out of here.”

Caitlyn turned her face against Vi’s lap. It was only when her body started shaking that Vi realized she was crying.

“You’re safe,” Vi repeated, arms secure around her. 

They were the last ones off the boat. Caitlyn managed to stand, one arm around Vi’s neck as they walked through an alley off the harbour. 

They heard a sudden whirr and turned, startled when a Firelight pounced from their hoverboard and landed ten feet from them, heavy boots nearly cracking the pavement. 

“Pow,” Vi breathed out. 

Powder lifted her mask up, and for a second Vi saw Jinx in her. Anger, confusion and distrust were plain on her face. 

She had a tight grip on her gun as she stared at Caitlyn, but finally it was Powder’s measured tone that broke the suffocating tension. 

“Gert was right,” Powder warned her. “They’ll have her skin.”

Vi swallowed. “She helped us. You have to believe me.”

“I believe you,” Powder said, “but that doesn’t erase the past. The role she accepted in this war. The orders she signed off on.”

Vi had no answer to that, knowing only a fraction of it all. She was going on pure feeling, and maybe that was blinding. 

“Take her to Babette’s,” Powder said. “She’ll be safe until we decide what to do with her.”

“I’m staying with her.”

“Vi-”

“It’s not a question.”

“Fine, but take this,” Powder said, taking off her mask to give it to her. “You can’t be seen.”

Vi nodded. She held her sister’s eyes and found pain in them. 

“Pow-”

“Why didn’t you trust me?” her sister asked, sounding like she was ten years younger. 

“You know I do.”

“Not with this. Not with your heart. Since Vander, you’ve always… kept me out. But her… you’d die for?”

Vi couldn’t speak for her other self. Not on something like this. But she knew her own truth:

“I’d die for you, Pow. I’d die to see you in a Zaun that’s free and happy. I’d die to see you have a normal life, where you’re safe, where you feel so loved it feels like your heart might explode, where you laugh every day and go to sleep without a worry in the world. Nothing changes that.” 

Powder wiped her eyes with the back of her arm. “Just go, Vi. Get out of these streets. Meet me at the canal bridge tomorrow, after sunset.”  

“I will.”

“Don’t forget to hide your ugly mug.”

“You know we share a lot of traits?”

Powder grabbed her hoverboard with a chuckle. “You fucking wish.” 

Smiling, Vi brought the mask down on her face and tightened her hold around Caitlyn’s waist. 

Babette’s was exactly how Vi remembered it, except it seemed like they’d expected her already. Word traveled fast here. 

They were shown a room underground, beyond a locked door. There was a made bed, some dry food, fruit, and plenty of water. There was a small shower and an assortment of clothes and masks in a cupboard, behind a secret panel.

This room had hidden Firelights before. 

Vi splashed water on her face after taking off her gear and boots. Caitlyn was still struggling to stay awake, blinking in and out of slumber for minutes only. It was hard to look at her for long; how she winced every time she moved, how she bit the insides of her cheeks to keep herself from crying. Vi didn't know if this was Ambessa's work or an Enforcer's, but they had left a mark that cut far deeper than a blade. 

“Now’s the time to show up,” Vi told herself in the mirror. She’d done her part. She didn't know this Caitlyn—how to best care for her, what made her feel safe. 

“Vi?”

She rushed to the bed, kneeling by Caitlyn’s side. “Hey, you’re okay. I’m right here.”

“Wh-where am I?”

“Babette’s. It’s safe.”

Caitlyn nodded. Then she frowned as she took in Vi’s hair. She reached out, touching the short strands. “What happened?”

“Uh, you don’t like it?”

“Well it’s… different.”

Vi smiled at her. “Angry-looking?”

For the first time, Caitlyn smiled back. “Yes.”

“Long story.” Vi reached for Caitlyn’s chin, worried about the bruising there. 

“It’s all right.” Caitlyn cupped Vi’s hand against her cheek, feeling its warmth. She closed her eye and let out a shaky breath. “I never thought I’d see you again…”

“Cait… what happened? They told me you were… that–”

“The factory was a trap.” Caitlyn sat up slowly, leaning against the pillow Vi propped up for her. “Ambessa set it up so that she’d know who her rat was. I walked right into it like a stupid, stupid fool.”

“Hey.”

“I should’ve known something was off. I should’ve known not to tell you about it. I almost got you killed,” Caitlyn said with a tremble. “I thought I had, Vi. I thought the explosion–”

“Shh, I’m here.”

Caitlyn broke, letting her tears fall again. Vi wrapped her arms around her, holding her until Caitlyn’s cries faded to silence. 

“Looks like we’re both still standing after all,” Vi said. 

When she was ready, Vi helped Caitlyn in the shower, washing off weeks of inhumane treatment. She ran her fingers through Caitlyn’s hair, lathering, rinsing off, smiling when Caitlyn leaned back into her; comfortable, safe, trusting. She was gentle with her movements and careful with Caitlyn's wounds, some of them still raw. 

Caitlyn stayed under the spray a long time, even when it ran cold. 

“Cait… you’re trembling…”

“I never said a word,” Caitlyn suddenly told her, turning around to face her. “Not a word. About our meeting points, about you, your sister, I swear, Vi. It didn't matter how many times they-” 

“Breathe. Just breathe.” 

Vi turned the water off and wrapped a towel around her. 

“We’ll figure it out. Together.”

Caitlyn caressed Vi’s face with the tips of her fingers, like she would break or vanish if she didn’t. 

She glanced at her lips.

Vi froze. Held her breath as Caitlyn leaned in and kissed her. 

It was barely a brush of lips, but it was a feeling this body had craved for months. She leaned into it, because how could she pretend she didn't miss this, but realized soon this wasn't hers to have.

She pulled away.

“Cait–”

“I’m sorry,” Caitlyn said. “I know we agreed to stop. I’m sorry, Vi, I-I keep making the same mistakes-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Vi reassured her. “Why don’t you rest? We’ll talk more after.”

They dressed in warm, soft clothing, and lay down on the bed. 

“Would you… if you’re staying…”

Vi understood her. She shifted closer and slung her arm around Caitlyn’s hips, molding her body against hers. Caitlyn was quick to cover her arm with hers and entwine their fingers. 

“I imagined this on that cold floor…” she whispered. “It’s all that kept me alive.” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Vi promised. 

That much she could give. 

A doctor sent by Babette checked on Caitlyn’s eye, ruling out infection before protecting it with a proper bandage. Caitlyn drank and ate some of the dried meat without issue, though a broken rib forced her to slow down. 

Caitlyn slept in her arms, but often woke up startling herself. Vi reassured her each time. After a few hours, Caitlyn felt she could stay awake. Vi wasn’t sure what time it was, but Babette had a man who’d come warn them before sunset. 

Vi watched Caitlyn prod the area around her eye in the mirror. 

“You’ll shoot again, Cait,” she said. 

Caitlyn met her gaze in the mirror. “How do you know I was–”

“Because I know you,” Vi smiled. “And I know how stubborn you are, and diligent. You’re going to adapt and anyone who underestimates you will be sorry.”

Caitlyn sighed, wanting to believe it. “First I would have to make it through the week.”

Vi thought about Powder’s words. She didn’t know what justice looked like for Firelights. She didn’t know the extent of her relationship with this Caitlyn—how far back their communication had started. What Caitlyn had shared with her; the plans she might’ve thwarted on her side; the operations she might’ve helped sabotage. Vi could only rely on her faith in her own Cait. What she knew of her—the deep, core values of the woman she loved. 

If she recognized traits of herself in every Vi, it had to be the same for Caitlyn. It had to.

When a knock finally came, signaling the sun was setting, Vi and Caitlyn put on their masks and equipment. Vi helped Caitlyn with the gear around her ribs, making sure it wasn’t too tight. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here?” Vi asked before they left Babette’s. 

Caitlyn nodded. “I won’t hide anymore, Vi. Not from your people.”

Vi didn’t know what her counterpart would say to that, but she preferred Caitlyn by her side. 

They left through the back alley and made sure to stick to the shadows, keeping their heads down. 

There were Enforcers patrolling some streets, but fewer and fewer the closer they came to the canal. This was Firelight territory, with so many traps that Enforcers and Noxians alike would be foolish to ever venture here without an army. Even then, they would be in an unfamiliar, urban jungle designed to confuse them. 

They went down the stairs to the narrow dock that ran the length of the canal. As they walked in silence, Vi felt a headache start to grow. She’d been losing her grip on this body as soon as it had laid eyes on Caitlyn in that cell, but it seemed like she needed one last push. 

And Vi was ready for it. Ready for the exact moment she’d blink away. Ready to fight for her own damn body. 

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Caitlyn said. 

Vi didn’t remember, but she could feel this place meant something to them. 

“Meeting you after so long of… only reading your words,” Caitlyn said with a faint smile, her fingers brushing against the graffiti on the wall. “Months of secret scrolls, and then suddenly you’re in front of me, this frowning, intense, guarded woman who looks at me like she wants to wring my neck.”

Vi got the idea then. Two women reaching out trying to bridge the divide, trying to gain each other’s trust over months, because this couldn’t lead to anything good without it. And then as their trust deepened, so did other feelings. Maybe they’d fought against them; known it would doom them; that it would only complicate what already seemed impossibly complicated, but Vi knew something they didn’t. 

In any world, no matter the circumstances, they fit together. 

“The work isn’t done.” 

Caitlyn’s smile was tainted with melancholy. “No, far from it. But I’m no one now.”

Vi stopped them under the small bridge. “You’re a Kiramman,” she reminded her. 

“I have no power, Vi.”

“You think that’s what made you strong? Your title?”

“What else?”

Vi lifted her chin up, meeting her eye. “You risked it all to meet a Firelight under a bridge, not knowing if she might drag you back to her hideout or put a knife to your throat. You want what’s best for us. Right now, that’s all that matters.”

Caitlyn was quiet for a beat. “I was right. You are different.”

“What an explosion does to a woman.”

Caitlyn didn’t seem to believe that. 

Vi looked toward one of the sewers grates, further down the canal. “I’ll tell them. Everything you’ve done. Every tip you gave me, every warning. I’ll go in and–”

“No, I need to face them,” Caitlyn said. “Their anger, their hatred—I’ll face it all. I have to.”

Caitlyn cupped her face, and surely that was enough for this other Vi to fight as hard as she could, wasn’t it?

“I want to face everything with you,” Caitlyn added. “By your side.”

Ah. No. That was it. 

Vi could’ve almost laughed when what felt like an icepick went through her chest. “Damnit, I am predictable.” 

Powder had yet to come, and she wished she’d held her just a bit tighter. But this wasn’t her world. 

Feeling faint and seeing spots now, she slid down the wall of the bridge. 

Caitlyn immediately kneeled by her. “What’s wrong?” Her eye traveled the entire length of her body. “Are you hurt?”

Vi felt her body grow hot. The telltale signs of her counterpart fighting, and fighting, and fighting. She clenched her jaw, agonizing as every muscle seemed to spasm. As her fingers and knees started to lock. 

At least she’d done some good here. 

“Cait… You don’t give up. Not you. Even when it gets hard. I know that.”

“Vi?”

Vi!

Vi!

Her body slid to the side.

Your hair is getting long again. I don’t know how I didn’t notice. We’ve been busy, I suppose, haven’t we? 

Vi?

Vi!

Doctor! Something’s wrong! Please!

There was nothing but an explosion of saturated, painfully bright colors. Like staring into the sun, or hurtling straight toward it. Vi’s ears felt like they were bleeding. As if something was screeching right into them. 

She was spinning out of control. 

She tried to reach out; to touch something, anything, but there was no gravity around her, nothing to stand on, nothing to grip, only an endless fall into–

“I am so sick of this, Vi!”

Vi clutched her head, trying to focus. Everything was spinning.  

“Wh-what?” she murmured. 

Caitlyn broke down into tears. “All I want… is for you to speak to me. To trust me.”

Vi looked around, finding them in a room. Not any room she knew. Caitlyn looked drained, her hair a mess and her eyes bloodshot. The bed was undone; enforcer uniforms strewn on the floor. 

“Everytime we’re together you pull me in deeper. You look at me like I… I matter to you. Like we could be together. But then you push me away again, and it’s that look in your eyes… That cold, angry expression. I don’t have the energy for it anymore.”

Vi heard a piercing sound and cried out in pain, blinded by the sudden light again-

Laughter tickled her ears. Stars were exploding behind her eyelids. She was warm all over, hot even, and it felt like there was a rush of blood to her face. She was resting on something soft and pillowy. 

“Darling… did you…?”

Vi cracked an eye open and immediately blushed. Caitlyn was nude and resting between her legs, crawling up her body. She kissed her abs and grinned. 

Caitlyn had short hair cut to her chin, and dark, sultry eyes. There was a tattoo of smoke that ran down her shoulder and back. That was different. 

“Pass out on me?” Caitlyn teased. “Was it that good?” 

Vi blinked, gobsmacked by the quick, frantic jumps of her untethered mind. 

“My poor little bird,” Caitlyn cooed in her ear, her breath warm and ticklish. "How about we try again?"

And Vi could’ve stayed here a little while longer without a problem, except– 

Please, please hold on. 

Caitlyn, perhaps we should let the doctors-

I am not leaving this room!

“Sister thinks she’s wiser! What does my friend Fishbones say?”

Vi wanted to retch her entire soul onto the pavement. Her legs were shaky and her head was pounding. 

She looked up. “J-jinx?”

“Finally got the name right! Now let’s see if you’ve learned how to dodge.”

Vi stared into the mouth of her sister’s rocket and jolted. “No!”

She hurtled through darkness. Through a wave of cold, freezing wind. She felt something beneath her hands. Something tangible. Something solid. 

But it vanished before she could wrap her hand around it. 

“I’m proud of you. Bar life isn’t for everyone, you know.”

A familiar grin. 

Vi lurched forward and dry-heaved. She stumbled, but was held by a strong hand. 

“Woah, there. What’s wrong, kiddo? It’s all right, I’ve got you.”

Her eyes focused and immediately filled with tears. 

“Vander?”

He smiled at her, taking the rag off his shoulder to wipe off the sweat on her face. “Long night, hm?”

“Vander, please, I need your- ah!”

“This isn’t you, Vi. The fighting. The drinking.”

Kind eyes hazed over in disappointment. 

Vi blinked and felt like she’d been stabbed. “Mom?”

But her mother’s face seemed further and further away. “Mom! No! Please!”

She reached out, desperate to be held by her. 

Stabilizing now.

Vi fell to the ground. 

She stayed there, her cheek and nose pressed against cold, hard steel. Little drops of water echoed around her. 

She was in a sewer somewhere.

Good. Vi didn’t feel like moving a muscle. Someone would just have to get her. 

She was done with this. 

Done with it all. 

But after a moment of contemplating this misery, the fact was… she was still here. 

She groaned, sitting up against the wall. There was a hole in the sewer that allowed some light to filter in. 

Vi didn’t care what her business here was. She’d felt something in that… that endless place. The anomaly, or whatever the hell it was. She’d felt something holding her, for a brief second. If she could just go back now, and try again, be ready for it–

Footsteps echoed in a pipe not too far. 

“Fuck.” 

Vi searched her pockets for anything she could use in case this was danger. She pulled out a piece of paper, which had scribblings on a meeting between Chem-Barons. Useless. 

“Well, you look terrible.”

Vi got up with a frown, remaining quiet as Caitlyn approached her with her rifle pointed at her. 

“Are you alone?” Caitlyn asked, voice hard. 

“Yeah, I’m alone, so if you could… not point the fucking rifle at me in close quarters?”

To her surprise, Caitlyn complied. She looked toward each side before approaching her, propping her rifle against the wall. 

“Where have you been?” she asked, her voice full of concern. 

Vi blinked, puzzled by the situation.

Caitlyn sighed, taking her hand. There was a deep cut on her wrist oozing blood. “I waited for hours in the bar. I thought something had happened, but then I heard about Isha and Jinx.”

Vi tried to think quickly, but she had nothing to go on here. Caitlyn was dressed in what honestly looked like Chem-Baron clothing. Ridiculous jewelry, exaggerated makeup, and tailored Zaun clothing. 

“I… I got caught up,” Vi eventually replied, which was no lie. 

“I’m just glad you’re safe,” Caitlyn whispered, her voice soft. “This day’s been so awful I feel like I could commit a crime.” 

“Honestly? You already look like a criminal and smell like a brothel.”

“So I fit the part,” Caitlyn pointed out, eyebrows raised in confusion. 

Hm. All right. Undercover Caitlyn.

A clicking noise drew their attention. 

“Ekko is waiting outside, isn’t he?” Caitlyn asked. 

Vi shrugged, tired of pretending she knew anything. “Maybe.”

“I’ve barely recovered from the last black eye his hoverboard gave me.”

“I can see that. Suits you.”

“I was wearing an eyepatch, Vi. Like a weathered merchant.”

Vi chuckled. “I like eyepatches. Prefer them, actually.”

“Do you know how much this operation costs? At least give me something to show for it.”

“I’m not a rat.”

“I don’t want the Lanes or your hideout, obviously,” Caitlyn said. “Shimmer related. The women at the brothel are exceptionally tight-lipped. I think they must be trained.”

Vi took out the paper from her pocket. “Margot. She’s meeting with Smeech and a few others in four days.”

“Grayson will like that.” 

Vi didn’t know what to say to that. 

Caitlyn took a step back. “I need to hit you.”

“What?” Vi snorted.

“Ekko will know we crossed paths. Last time it was me—twice in a row is ridiculous. I don’t want him thinking I’m completely incapable of landing a hit, and in close quarters, no less. Suspicious, wouldn’t you think?”

“Hey, screw you.”

“I wish you would, my love, but we’re a little pressed for time.” 

Vi smirked. “All right, then.”

Caitlyn motioned toward her gun. “Well? Are you going to brace yourself or not? I don’t actually want to break your pretty face.” 

Vi squeezed her eyes shut. “Hit me good, cupcake.”

“Damn. What happened to you?” Ekko asked. 

Vi brushed a finger against her bruised cheek as she walked out of the sewer pipe. “Ran into an Enforcer. She says hi.”

“I thought we went over this. You don’t block with your face!”

“Old habits die hard.”

“So what does she look like?”

Vi felt a kicking sensation in her stomach. She leaned down, hands on her knees. “I don’t know. She's hot. Expensive clothes. Wavy hair.”

Ekko blinked at her, then glared. “No, what does she look like as in, did you also land a punch?” 

“Oh. Uh. Yeah, sure.”

“Useless,” Ekko muttered as he walked away. 

Vi clutched her head. “I swear if I’m not–”

Vi landed in a field of grass and flowers and was immediately on her knees, vomiting what felt like acid. Her throat burned and her insides contracted. 

“Fuck me. I’m done. I’m done.”

Shaking, she stumbled forward three steps before falling on her back. She stared up at the sky, determined not to move this time. She just wouldn’t. This Vi would have to fight for it on her own. 

Vi was through with it all. 

All she wanted was her home. To grab that tether and never let go. To fight and make decisions in her own body. But it seemed like Ekko had been right. She was a parasite, and now she was growing weaker by the day, unable to cling to anything for long. 

What happened when she became too weak? What happened if she never did settle back?

“Are you being silly?”

Vi turned her head and frowned. There was a little girl with apple cheeks, big green eyes and wild short hair blacker than ink. She was clutching a stuffed animal against her chest. 

“Yes, I’m being silly,” Vi felt compelled to say. 

The little girl grinned and lay down on her side next to Vi. Flowers were framing her round, freckled face. Vi felt an intense wave of calm overtake her. 

“Mum will be mad.”

Vi looked around, worried she’d landed in a tricky situation again. It would be just her luck to be accused of kidnapping some Piltover House heir. “Your mum?” 

“You said you would be right back, and now you’re being sick all over her flowers.” 

“Your mum’s flowers?”

The girl giggled. “You’re being really, really silly.”

She squeezed the stuffed animal against her chest. It was a rabbit. 

A rabbit Vi knew all too well.

Well. Maybe she’d have to move after all. 

She stood up, looking around. “What is this place?” she asked. 

She recognized the Kiramman grounds, their property near their glasshouse gazebo, but the view of Piltover was different. It looked even… grander, if that was possible. There were two more Hexgate towers, with sophisticated airships coming in and out. 

“Boom boom!” the little girl exclaimed as an airship whizzed through the sky and disappeared.  

“Huh?”

The little girl pouted, looking around in confusion, as if Vi’s clipped sentences were starting to upset her. 

Vi took a breath. “Sorry, uh, just banged my head. All better now.” 

Vi looked at her clothes, pristine and fitted. Tailored shirt with suspenders. Buckled shoes. She touched her face and ears, feeling no scar, no piercings. Her short hair wasn’t buzzed or layered, but tidy and even. 

She looked at her hands, finding them smooth and… soft. Like she hadn’t punched a wall in her life. 

Who the hell was she?

“Mama, I’m hungry now. Will there be food at the party?”

Vi turned. Stared at the child and found her blinking right back. 

“Oh, fuck.”

The little girl bounced on her feet, shrieking in amusement. “Swear jar! Swear jar!”

Chapter Text

It was a place she knew well. What Caitlyn called a hunting lodge, except it had two floors, five bedrooms, claw-footed tubs in the extravagant bathrooms, a kitchen somehow fully stocked every time they came, and of course an armory bigger than Vi’s childhood house. So to her it remained ‘the other mansion’ and to Caitlyn it was just ‘the lodge.’

But that was her world. 

Vi wasn’t sure why they were here today, or why the kid now clinging to her hand was babbling about airships while dragging her through the backyard to the house. Vi had kept her mouth shut a couple times in these worlds, but right now it wasn’t so much a choice as pure, unbridled fear. 

This kid was her kid.

Vi had to repeat that a few times in her head, and then came the barrage of questions: When? When did she have the time? 

How?

What?

Huh?

“Mama!”

Fuck.

“Y-yeah?” Vi asked.

“Are you going to brush your teeth?”

“Why would I do that?”

“You were sick!”

The little girl pulled her toward the front door and stared up at her. She couldn’t be older than nine.

Vi blinked, then found some sense. “Right.” She felt around her pockets and fished out a key. It was more complex than it probably should be, with a thick cylinder that clicked around on its own as soon as she slid it into the lock.

The girl pushed the door open and ran inside making a train sound, disappearing around a corner. 

Vi looked around, grateful the layout hadn’t changed. Except... for the giant family painting in the middle of the hallway. 

Caitlyn in a uniform she didn’t recognize standing behind Vi, who was sitting in an armchair with the little one on her lap. The girl looked younger there, five or six maybe, but Vi could tell her face was rounder now, with healthy rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. She looked… shy in the portrait. Her hand wrapped around Vi’s wrist, her smile small and tentative, like a cub peeking out of her den for the first time. 

Vi wondered what their story was. How different it was from her own. This wasn’t a quaint portrait commissioned on a whim. It was a Kiramman tradition.

It meant commitment. Family. 

A union on paper.

It meant Vi was a Kiramman here. Had been a Kiramman for years. 

She heard the girl laugh as she ran out of a room and then Caitlyn’s voice, a soft call Vi couldn’t quite make out. Steeling herself, she walked toward the master bedroom and stopped in the doorway. 

Caitlyn was in a perfectly tailored dress, standing in front of the floor-length mirror to put on her earrings. Her hair was longer than Vi had ever seen it, down to the middle of her back like the smoothest waterfall. 

Was she a councilor here too? The portrait uniform seemed ceremonial. 

As Vi approached with her heart in her throat, Caitlyn met her eyes in the mirror. “Was the airship on time?” 

Vi remembered the booming airship going through the Hexgate and figured that’s why she’d been out there. She didn’t know what was so important about it, but that was a question for another time. “Right on the dot,” she replied.

Caitlyn adjusted her necklace next and sighed, perhaps not liking her reflection. “Is Saskia ready? The carriage should be here soon.”

Saskia. Cute. 

“She’s running around somewhere.”

Caitlyn nodded, slipping her feet in a low, elegant heel. “We really can’t be late. Mother’s been on edge ever since the gala was postponed and she'll want to hear it went smoothly. Everything needs to be perfect.”

Ah, so Caitlyn wasn’t a councilor then. 

“Jayce will be making the address at nine sharp. I’ll be on the stage until the end, but I’ve free reign after. He asked me not to be so buttoned up tonight–” Caitlyn rubbed the back of her neck and turned around. “So this is me ‘having fun,’ then.” 

Vi didn’t know what to make of her tone. The edge in her voice. Caitlyn could barely hold her gaze, and Vi didn’t feel it was a conversation she could flub her way through. 

She was more taken aback by how different Caitlyn looked. Thinner, her eyes not quite…Hm. Maybe that’s what everyone else had been seeing in Vi. ‘Your eyes…’ they’d say. Was that what they meant? Something so different in them that they could tell the person they knew was gone? 

Thrown, Vi settled on the most generic bit she could think of: “You’ll do great.”

Caitlyn nodded mutely before going to grab a shawl. 

“I’ll use the bathroom for a sec,” Vi murmured before heading toward it.

She stared at her own reflection as she grabbed a toothbrush (the one with jankier bristles seemed a safe bet). No piercings, no tattoos; not even a speck of ink on whatever skin she could see. Her hands did have a roughness to them, so this Vi wasn’t completely unfamiliar with manual work, or maybe a good fight, but for the first time Vi wasn’t confident she could get out of a snag with her muscles. They were weaker. Her arms had decent definition, but the overall feeling wasn’t strength. 

Vi had always felt like a stranger in each world; known right away she wasn’t home, but this ran deeper. Like not even her counterpart felt at ease in this body. 

She brushed her teeth slowly, focusing on every sound outside. She heard the pitter-patter of hurried feet and then a loud gasp. 

“You’re sooo pretty!”

Caitlyn chuckled. “You think so, button?”

“Mama didn’t say?”

There was an odd silence before Caitlyn replied, “She’s brushing her teeth.”

“She threw up on the flowers!”

Vi hung her head. Well that kid didn’t grow up in the Lanes, she knew that much. Nobody encouraged a blabbermouth. 

“She what?”

Vi rinsed out her mouth and walked out. “All set.”

Caitlyn arched a brow at her. “Are you feeling ill?”

“Just ate something rotten. Had to wash it out.”

Caitlyn didn’t seem convinced, but made no further mention of it.

“Saskia, will you look out the window and see if the carriage is coming?”

“Okay!” 

Vi watched Saskia kneel on the plushy window seat and press her hands against the glass.

Caitlyn picked up a red jacket on the chair and gave it to Vi, who put it on. Tight and narrow. Nothing she could fight in. 

“You have… a blade of grass," Caitlyn said, stopping herself from touching Vi's hair. 

“Oh.” Vi ruffled her own hair. “Better?”

“Yes.”

There was a heavy pause as Caitlyn met her eyes, expecting something. As Vi wracked her brain, Caitlyn finally said, “You look very nice. Sharp.”

Vi felt something odd in her chest. Felt uncomfortable. This wasn’t them. They didn’t walk on eggshells around each other. 

“You too,” Vi replied, eyes sweeping down her frame. “Gorgeous.”

But it was as if the word made Caitlyn even more morose. She fidgeted with the ends of her shawl.  

“We should-”

“He’s here! He’s here!” Saskia shouted, and then ran out of the room still clutching her rabbit. Maybe she was a bit of a tattletale, but she sure as hell was fast. 

“That’s our ride, then,” Caitlyn said. “Ready?”

Fuck no. 

Vi nodded. “Always.”

She’d run headfirst into a prison breakout—how bad could a gala be?

“Jayce tells me you oversee the business seamlessly. I was quite the toolmaker myself, in my youth!” 

Yeah, so, the answer was: fucking bad.

Vi wasn’t much of a talker. Oh she could crack a joke, be a wise ass, be smooth, and even dive deep if Caitlyn and her ever found themselves needing the long talks, but chit-chat? Shop talk? Meandering bullshit that said nothing and meant nothing? 

It made Vi want to crawl out of her skin. She didn’t have the gift of gab that Piltover was raised on. 

Now she didn’t even have much information to go on, so a nuisance was turning into a nightmare. And those were choice words for someone already hurtling through unknown spaces detached from her body. 

She’d take another world over this room. This lavish, golden, green paradise that smelled like wine and sweets. The ride here had been quiet, both parents listening to their child babble about the scenery they rode through, and even that had felt less stifling. 

First, Vi realized this was a similar gala to the one that was tradition in the Piltover she knew, and the one where Caitlyn was a councilor. For some reason it was a cornerstone. 

Second, Caitlyn had left to stand by Jayce’s side—he the golden boy, her his head of security it would seem, which Vi would have to think about more later—and Saskia was in an adjacent room with other children her age. 

Third, that left Vi to stare at people who knew her and spoke to her and blinked in confusion when she simply nodded along, trying to collect as much information as she could. 

A toolmaker. Her. She liked tinkering with things, fixing up her gauntlets or bits and bobs, but it had never felt like a calling. It was something she did to allow her mind to disappear for a minute; to focus on a task at hand and nothing else. 

Even if she was living it now, it was hard to really imagine this life. It felt like the most… unfamiliar path. 

She caught Caitlyn with Jayce a few times. Caitlyn walked beside him, behind him, like she was his shadow. There was a complicity between them, but it remained professional. Jayce was accosted left and right by influential people, some Vi recognized and others not, draped in fine clothes and jewelry. 

He started his address at nine, and it was odd to see him again. Her Caitlyn had mourned him for a long time; his disappearance still a mystery to them all. Here he looked older but hadn’t lost his spark. He spoke of the future with a bright smile; spoke of Piltover and Zaun’s great strides. Their union. Their progress together.

This world was something else entirely. 

Vi felt a wave of dread, a sort of sloshing back and forth in her stomach. She didn’t belong here—she couldn’t even fake it—that was the prevalent feeling. And Vi knew this feeling because she’d lived it, but here it seemed like a constant. Like every breath came with incertitude. 

She found a way through the crowd mid-speech. On the terrace overlooking the garden outside, she undid the top buttons of her shirt and took off her jacket. Her skin felt hot and her hands clammy. She tried to tune out the clinking of glasses, the laughs at Jayce’s quips and the applause. It was all so damn suffocating. 

“Thought for sure I’d find you in the cellar.”

Vi turned, exhaling sharply. 

“Pow–” she stopped herself, unsure who it was, Powder, Jinx, or maybe someone else.

But her sister laughed, pulling out a flask from the inside pocket of her jacket. She looked good—healthy, with her hair shorter and in two buns. She was dressed for the gala, but there was more personality to her clothing. She looked like herself.

Why didn’t Vi?

“You see Clagg somewhere?” Powder asked. 

Vi froze. “Claggor?”  

“Hm,” Powder turned around, leaning against the parapet. “He was so nervous about smooching tonight. I told him just put on your best clothes, say complicated words, and they’ll be lapping from your palm and imagining the fortune they can make off of ya’. Well, that's what I did anyway, and now my face is on a damn poster.”

“And?”

“Last I saw him, he was sweating bullets talking to Mel.”

Vi leaned back next to her. “Figures.”

“Anyway, you coming to the real party tonight?”

“Where’s that?” Vi asked.

Powder let out a small scoff. “Seriously, Vi?”

More disappointment. Vi frowned, bemused. 

“Pow pow pow!”

Powder brightened immediately, letting go of whatever frustration she felt. Saskia ran to Powder’s legs, encircling them in a tight hug. 

“Oh shit, it’s the wind witch!” her sister gasped. 

“No, it’s me, it’s me!” Saskia protested. 

“You hear that?” Powder asked, looking around. “I think she’s saying something. Is it a spell?”

“It’s me, Saskia!”

Powder looked down and gasped. “It’s Sask! Sheesh, Vi, why didn’t you say so?” 

Powder picked up Saskia and balanced her on her hip. “Tell me the truth, sweet tooth: You’re bored out of your little skull.”

Saskia touched Powder’s buns, nodding.

“No kidding! I think I fell asleep seventeen times since the beginning of this shindig. Should we go for a ride through the garden? Whatdaya say?”

“Yay!”

Powder set her down before kneeling. “Hop on fast, kiddo, y’know my knees are starting to creak.” 

Saskia hopped on her back, arms around her neck and legs around her waist. 

Powder let out an exaggerated grunt. “What are you feeding this kid? Murk wolf?”

Saskia met Vi’s eyes and then suddenly tilted her head to the side. “Mama?” she asked with a frown. 

Vi looked away. “Bring her back in one piece, please.”

Powder held on to Saskia’s feet before taking off. “No promises!” 

And to the sound of Saskia’s laughter, Vi watched them disappear in the garden.

Another round of applause from inside and it seemed like Jayce’s speech had finally wrapped up. Vi stayed on the terrace, looking away from the glass doors so hopefully no one would approach her. 

She saw Powder galloping with Saskia around the garden, shrieking, playing, hiding behind bushes and trees. It made her feel at peace. Powder hadn’t smiled so much in the last world. She’d been at war, but here she was–

“Already hiding?”

Vi watched Caitlyn walk toward her, one hand tight around a glass. She looked nervous, but how could that be? They were a family. Why did they feel so distant? 

“Just keeping an eye on my sister,” Vi replied. 

Caitlyn leaned against the parapet, watching the scene in the garden for a moment. “What about your daughter?” 

“Nah, she’s tough. I’m not worried about her.”

Caitlyn seemed pleased. “That she is.” 

If it had been her Caitlyn, Vi would’ve leaned closer. Would’ve grinned and joked and maybe said something to make her blush. It would’ve come naturally, because they’d been growing together for years now and Caitlyn was her home. 

But Vi found herself looking at her and seeing a woman she didn’t know. Feeling a tightness in her chest she didn’t understand. Something like regret. Maybe even bitterness. 

Something that could hurt them if left to fester so long. Maybe it already was. Maybe it explained why they were so out of step. 

“This was less of a disaster than last year at least,” Caitlyn said with a faint smile, trying hard to fill the silences. Vi knew she wanted to share in the memory, to find closeness, but there was something… missing.

She forced a smile, desperate not to hurt her. “Right.”

Pain flashed on Caitlyn’s face anyway. She turned away, and immediately the distance between them increased. “I forgot to tell you: Saskia’s appointment was moved to noon tomorrow. We should meet at the platform at quarter to.”

That sounded important. “Which platform?”

“I’ve told you a hund–” Caitlyn closed her eyes, stopping herself. “Level two.” 

Vi grimaced, quietly apologizing to her counterpart for flubbing that. “Of course. I’ll be there.” 

She glanced at Caitlyn, heart sinking when she noticed Caitlyn sipping quietly on her drink. 

“You really do look gorgeous,” Vi murmured.

Caitlyn set her glass down. “But that’s not enough, is it?”

And then she was walking into the garden, toward Powder and Saskia sitting by the pond, pointing at various fish. 

Vi found him in the library. He was tall and broad, with the same kind face and warm eyes. He was practicing a speech, staring at his reflection in the window. 

“…so you see, if we could expand our field of research to the… No, if we could… Actually, if I might suggest—”

“Generally they don’t listen to the details,” Vi told her brother. “They just want to know you know your shit.” 

Claggor turned around and gave a sheepish grin. “Vi,” he said, approaching her. “Long time no see.”

Vi felt tears in her eyes, and then he was embracing her. She clung to every precious second until he pulled away. 

“Sask around?” he asked. “I miss the sprout.”

Vi quickly wiped her eyes, putting on a casual air. “Yeah, digging holes with Powder somewhere.”

He chuckled. “You can’t take the Zaun out of the kid,” he said, but then stopped himself. “Uh, well, you know what I mean.”

“Sure,” she replied. Did that mean Saskia was from Zaun? 

He sighed, looking toward the door. “Man, I’m not built for this. I don’t know how you do it. I feel like I’m trying to sell myself.”

Vi leaned against a desk. He leaned next to her, and for a moment they just stared at the gap in the door. The light, the noise, all from that world outside they were trying to avoid. 

“You are,” she told him, remembering that feeling as she’d adjusted to life in Piltover. “At the end of the day, they’re people just like you, but they’ll smell doubt a mile away. If you want them to open their purses, to be on your side and vouch for you… you gotta be someone with your shit together.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I just want to expand on our filtration systems. The fissures are almost all clean. The factory bill passed. It’s not the shiny new thing anymore. Just dirty work without any money in it.”

“Sell it anyway,” she told him. “Patents, blueprints, plaques; you’ll slap their name on it. They’ll be acclaimed for their charitable work. You have ideas, potential, dreams—make them see that. Make them see you’re someone, and there’s an opportunity to be associated with you.”  

He gave her a funny look. “I don’t know, Vi, I’m no man of progress.”

She nudged his shoulder with hers. “But you could be, with their generous support.”

He smiled. “Touché. You’re good at this.”

She couldn’t explain it. The numbness of this body. Going through the motions. What a beautiful life it was, and yet she felt like a fraud. Not her, stepping into this body, but the body itself. How clunky it felt moving in this world, acting like she was one of them. 

Was that what this was all about? Pretending for so long she was reaching a breaking point? 

“Maybe you can take the Zaun out of the kid after all,” she said. 

Claggor squeezed her shoulder. “I’m here for you, Vi, you know that, right? No matter what. I know we… aren’t so close anymore, but I’ll never forget what your mom did for me before she took up that Talis job. Never. I don’t know where I’d be if she hadn’t taken me to Benzo. And that’s what we do in Zaun. That’s what’s in our blood. Looking after each other until the end.” 

And because she needed it—because this body needed it too—Vi turned to him fully and let him take her in his arms again. This was the life he deserved. Growing up, growing into an adult, and getting to be someone too in this world. Vi yearned to take him with her. To show her own Zaun who they'd missed out on. A brilliant mind who would do everything to make their city thrive just like this one. It hurt that she couldn't cross the divide. She wanted to shake this Vi by the shoulders, to tell her how lucky she was, to tell her to see her friends more, to love her wife better, to hold her child tighter, to find her sister at the party and have a drink with her, but what did she know? This was only a glimpse. A corner of the full picture. 

“When d’you get so damn tall?” she mumbled.

He chuckled. “About the time I finally got three meals a day. Like I said, I owe your mom and Benzo everything.”

What a beautifully painful thought that was, to the girl who’d lost them all before she’d made it to adulthood.  

The ride home was even quieter, with Saskia on Caitlyn’s lap fast asleep. It had been a lot of excitement. Vi tried to find Caitlyn's gaze, but she hadn't met her eyes once the entire trip. She was staring outside the window of the carriage, her arms tight around Saskia. 

When they arrived, the carriage pulled away and Vi was left following her family into their giant, secluded home. Vi wondered when the decision to move here had been taken. If moving away from the cities was another point of contention. 

“Mama,” Saskia mumbled, and then Caitlyn was finally looking at Vi.

“Would you-”

“Yeah, I’ll take her,” Vi said.

She carried her to her room, finding it on the second try. Saskia woke up and got ready for bed with little protest. When she brushed her thick hair, Vi spotted a tiny braid hidden behind her ear. 

“Pow do that?” Vi asked.

Saskia nodded, then sat in front of the train set she had on the floor. 

“Time for bed, button,” Vi gently said. 

Saskia peered up at her and pursed her lips in thought. “You’re not mama.”

Vi stayed still, trying to figure out if she’d heard that right. 

“She says ‘button’ differently,” Saskia pointed out as she started pushing her train on the wooden track, “like buh-tton.”

That was the same word if you asked Vi, but who was she to question her kid?

“That so?” 

“And you have big, scared eyes. Like a frog in a net.”

“Ah, thanks. I think you hang out with your aunt a little too much.”

Saskia smiled. “Is mama okay?”

No point in drawing this out. Vi went to sit next to her. “Yeah, I think she will be.”

Vi wondered if maybe this was an opportunity to dig deeper. Well, there weren't a hundred delicate ways to go about this. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions, Sask?”

Saskia watched her train come back in front of them. “Like what?”

“Do you know how long we’ve lived here?”

Saskia pushed her train again. “We were with grandpa and grandma in the city for a long time. Then I got worse, so we came here for the air.”

“Worse how?”

Saskia shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

There was more to it, but Vi wouldn’t push. “You feel better now?”

“Hm-mm. Mum says my factory lung was caught early, so it’ll be okay soon.” 

Vi felt her blood turn cold. Factory lung. This kid had been put to work, which meant–

“You are from Zaun.”

Saskia nodded. “Just like you.”

“That’s right.”

Saskia tchoo tchoo’ed as the train went around and around the tracks. Even if there was a carelessness to her, Vi understood the depth of her expression in the portrait. Saskia had been put in situations no child should be put in. Put to work. Unprotected. Exposed to fumes, to liquids—to greed, corruption. 

Zaun’s depths would always be toxic and dangerous, no matter the circumstances of the world. No matter the good intentions of people like Claggor. You couldn’t change what was bone-deep. Even if the city thrived in this world, you couldn’t root out cruelty entirely. 

Which…

Vi felt something shift inside her. The first glimmer she was inside someone else’s body. A nudge in the right direction, maybe. She was asking the right questions. Drawing the right conclusions. 

They’d taken this kid in, just as she’d been taken in. Maybe Vi was seeing something in Saskia that she hadn’t confronted in her own life. Maybe her child was reminding her of things she hadn’t accepted. Things that were gnawing at her now, but she didn’t have the right words to deal with them. 

Or maybe she did, but the words threatened the life she’d built with Caitlyn. 

“Goodnight, button.”

Saskia smiled at her. “Buh-tton.”

“I’ll try, promise,” Vi smiled back. “Can you keep my secret for now? Just for a little bit?”

Saskia threw her arms around her neck. Vi felt a warm, deep love for the tiny body clinging to her. She took her to bed and tucked her in. 

“Night, mama.”

It was odd how Saskia knew it wasn’t her yet offered her love anyway. Maybe she felt there was still a piece of her mother in there. Regardless, Vi felt that privilege keenly. 

Caitlyn was slipping in bed when Vi found sleepwear that looked like it might be hers. She took her time in the bathroom, unsure what to do with herself. 

When she walked toward the bed, Vi felt immediate tension in her shoulders. Wasn’t this everything she’d hoped for since the first world she’d landed in? Just being in bed with Caitlyn again. Just being held, being close, and washing away the rest. 

But this Caitlyn felt like a stranger. The relationship itself felt like something she didn’t know. Like something terrible was buried under the surface, bound to snap one day. 

Vi wanted to reach out, to mend it, because surely it had to do with why this Vi was so damn quiet, but where could she start? She knew nothing of this world. A crack like this didn’t happen overnight. It started small, and if it was addressed in time it could be easily patched, but now there was a chasm between them. 

“Goodnight,” Caitlyn whispered, and then turned around on her side, facing away. 

Vi had felt alone many times in these worlds, but the feeling was never more gutting than now, next to the woman she loved. 

Caitlyn and Saskia were already at the kitchen table eating breakfast when Vi made her way there with a foggy mind. She didn’t remember ever feeling like this. Unfocused, heavy, with scattered thoughts and slow reasoning. 

It was hard to even convince herself to get her ass up. She needed to understand what made this girl tick, otherwise she’d never leave this body. 

Caitlyn seemed surprised she wasn’t ready when she approached them, but made no mention of it. She poured her a cup of tea.

“Good morning.”

“Mama!” Saskia grinned as she bit into her toast. 

“Morning,” Vi replied, and then on instinct bent down to kiss the top of Saskia’s head.

She glanced at Caitlyn, but her wife looked away before their eyes could meet. No kissing, then. Vi sat down at the empty chair and cleared her throat. 

“Do you think you’ll go in today?” Caitlyn asked.

Vi ran a hand through her hair, still unused to its tidy length. “Ah… work?”

Caitlyn nodded, so Vi pretended to contemplate it. Was that even a choice she had? She’d gathered she worked for the Talis business, but if she oversaw the place… 

“Of course, the machine doesn’t run itself,” she said.

Caitlyn set her teacup down. “Well, this one does. You haven’t taken a minute since the eastern Hexgate was completed. Maybe you could…” she shifted in her seat, hesitant. “You know Jayce supports you taking a little time off, that’s all.”

Vi looked at Saskia, who was observing how she navigated this. Against everything this body was shouting, Vi settled on, “Yeah, I think I should.”

Caitlyn’s eyes widened in shock. “Really? Because I think it would be so good for you, darli—” she cut herself off, but her eyes were still shining with hope. 

Vi knew the word anyway, and felt a profound sense of loss that Caitlyn would ever stop herself from such casual intimacy. 

“What do you think, button?” Vi asked her daughter.

Saskia’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Always listen to mum.”

The Talis business would have to wait. 

Vi had no intention of going to work. After Caitlyn left with Saskia, Vi put on the most casual clothes she could find and headed out. 

It was time she sent this body a jolt, not the other way around.

Zaun was greener than she had ever seen it, without the foggy thickness of chem-fumes. There was a clear influence from Piltover, but it was still its own city, with its own architecture, culture, and way of being. 

Vi took the bathysphere down and could hardly believe her eyes. The air, the colors, the life teeming in the streets, the businesses, the shops, the showcases, the art, the markets… It was like getting to see a dream come to life. Ekko’s dream. Vander’s. Her parents’.

Hers. 

This was home. This was home. Vi felt like a live wire, pressing her hands against the window much like Saskia had when waiting for the carriage. 

She got off and left the station, walking down the paths she knew and yet didn’t. This wasn’t just a coat of paint. It was Zaun with the same opportunities to thrive as Piltover. 

It was no perfect city—how could it be, if her child had been found in a factory—but Vi knew progress was work over decades and centuries. It seemed like this Zaun had gotten a headstart over her own. 

And maybe this Vi had pushed this feeling down, this sense of belonging, because her mother had chosen a different home for them. Because embracing it might jeopardize what she did have. 

Would Caitlyn understand why she gravitated so strongly toward this complicated city? The city that had harmed their child so profoundly? 

Vi could see now why her counterpart struggled to accept this part of herself. It seemed her mother had chosen Piltover at a crucial point, and that eventually Vi had built a life with Caitlyn. 

But Zaun was in her bones. These were her people. She understood them. She saw herself in them. She’d surely seen herself in Saskia, before they formally took her in. 

After the war, Vi had struggled to find her footing. Her place. It was one thing to live with Caitlyn, it was another to live in Piltover. 

Her whole life had been about protecting people. About thinking of nothing other than that. But Caitlyn and Ekko had said she could live for herself now. Could find what brought her joy aside from them. What rested her soul. Awoke her passions.

Eventually Vi had found it in community. In the walls of the bar, with the Firelights even, and at times in Piltover, because she hadn’t lied about that to Claggor: they were people just like them, some funny, some brilliant, mad, riveting, dull…

Vi had found a balance. Made sense of who she was regardless of where she lived. What she wanted to say. Bring to the table. 

But what of this Vi? 

She’d left Zaun behind, and now her soul was cleaved in half. 

The doctor was Piltovian, if his diplomas were anything to go by, but his office was in Zaun. Vi had felt Saskia grab her hand as soon as they’d met at the station, with Caitlyn holding her other hand. 

She was in uniform today, having come straight from Jayce’s office with Saskia in tow. Saskia blabbed about what she’d learned in class, something about geography and the other about bugs. 

Vi couldn’t really pay attention, realizing just then this was a medical appointment for their kid. It didn’t sit right with her. If she could get her hands on the scum that had thrown her into a factory… 

“Do you know why it was pushed up?” she asked Caitlyn.

Caitlyn seemed equally tense, though they both put on a brave face for their verbose daughter. 

“I don’t think it was anything urgent. It must’ve just opened up.” 

“Hm.”

When they climbed the building stairs to the office, they were welcomed by a friendly woman and left to wait in a spacious room. 

Then came the doctor; a tall, graying man who reminded Vi of Loris. Caitlyn greeted him like they knew each other well, which of course they would, though Vi struggled to pretend this time. 

Her nerves were shot. How did parents do this? 

He listened to Saskia’s heart multiple times, had her cough, breathe in different ways, and inhale something Vi didn’t recognize. He collected her mucus and some blood, all of which made Vi feel awfully protective. 

She stood by her side the whole time while Caitlyn stood by her head, caressing the apple of her cheek, bending down to kiss her forehead, to smile at her, to tell her it would be over soon. 

Yet it felt endless. Vi didn’t understand the extent of it, and of course couldn’t ask unless she wanted this poor Vi to be crowned shittiest parent. 

“It’s excellent news,” the doctor finally said, and suddenly his concerned brow loosened, the corner of his lips went up, and he tickled Saskia’s foot with a feather until she curled her toes and let out a loud giggle. 

“Both lungs and heart sound healthier than ever. I see every reason for continued optimism!”

Vi felt Caitlyn’s relief in waves. They shared a smile—their first—and then Vi felt Caitlyn take her hand, squeezing it tightly. 

“Thank you,” they told the doctor. “Thank you.”

They were on their way back to the bathysphere when Vi felt jitters. She glanced over her shoulder, at the boundary markets framed by the ironwork of the surrounding buildings. Her eyes swept below the promenade level, toward the depths, where she could still see clearly, where the structures of her youth looked cleaner and sturdier. 

And this body was aching to sink into it. 

“Vi?” Caitlyn asked. 

She stopped them, meeting her wife’s eyes and smiling at her daughter. “I have an idea, but only if you trust me.”

Caitlyn arched a brow, prompting her to continue. 

“We’re all a little hungry, aren’t we? Well, I know a guy.”

“A guy?”

“Jericho. Best grilled meat in the city.”

Caitlyn looked around, unsure. “Nearby?” 

“No,” Vi said, swallowing, “couple levels below.”

“Vi–”

“I know, Cait, but it’s clean there. Swear we leave if we spot a single grey cloud.”

Caitlyn glanced at their daughter. “What do you think, my love? Are you hungry?”

Saskia looked cautious, but there was a little bounce in her step. She looked up at Vi. “Is it deep down?” she asked quietly. 

Vi kneeled in front of her. “It’s three levels down, but I would never, ever let anything happen to you. If you don’t want to go, we don’t go.”

Saskia stepped close so she could whisper in her ear, “Are we going to a factory?”

Vi pulled back and cupped her cheek, her heart breaking when she saw the worry in Saskia’s eyes. “No. No, sweetheart. We’re going to an outside diner in the market. I want to show you how beautiful it can be here. But if you don’t feel good, if you want to go home, we’ll leave right away. I promise.” 

Saskia nodded, curious now. She looked up at Caitlyn and bit her lip, “I want to go, mum.”

Vi stood and waited for Caitlyn's approval. She knew it shouldn’t be her own decision. She wasn’t actually Saskia's parent. But she could still feel this Vi’s body and would never go against its instincts. And there was fear, worry, doubt—

But there was excitement too. A slow, cautious awakening. 

“Let’s have a bite, then,” Caitlyn said. 

Saskia wanted to see better, so up on Vi’s shoulders she went as they strolled down the promenade. And because Vi couldn’t help it, she took Caitlyn’s hand too, squeezing it when Caitlyn glanced at her in surprise. 

If the buildings looked different, the heart and bones of the city remained, just as Vi had guessed. She still knew the streets like the back of her hand. Could still find her way to the lift that would take them below much faster than the bathysphere.

Caitlyn was quiet as Vi held Saskia in the lift, pointing toward all the bridges, the passageways, and the bustling life on every street. The murky greens Vi knew in her Zaun were gone here, replaced by the hues of neons, of vegetation crawling up the buildings, of sunlight bouncing off strategically built rooftops and glass panels. 

Eventually Vi found the sign for Jericho’s, in plain view in the market square rather than tucked away. 

Despite Caitlyn’s… well, let’s be frank, grimace, Vi insisted this was the place. They sat in a corner, Saskia tucked between them, and though Jericho didn’t recognize Vi, he seemed overjoyed to have them at his booth. 

“Three of your finest, and don’t skimp on the sauce,” Vi simply said, and off he was.

Saskia was delighted, big eyes taking it all in like they were at a fair. She giggled at the frog legs on the grill, licked her chops when the spices in the air hit her nose, and bounced in her seat when Jericho flipped over ingredients in his pan. 

“Vi, is this food… safe?” Caitlyn murmured. “We did just get a clean bill of health for our daughter.”

Vi grinned. “Around here, not above board means the best damn meat you’ll ever taste.”

Jericho set out their three full bowls in front of them and watched as Saskia dug right in, shoving her fingers in the bowl, munching on the meat like it was birthday cake, and slurping the sauce like it was the elixir of life. Vi felt… immensely proud. 

“Jericho, meet your new lifelong customers.”

He let out a booming sound of joy before turning to another customer. 

Caitlyn had a look of shock on her face, looking down at her own bowl in mild disgust. But, bless her heart, she tried it, sliding the meat around in the thick sauce and biting off a decent chunk. 

Vi watched her chew, nudging Saskia to do the same. They observed the changes on Caitlyn’s face, from doubt to surprise and suddenly a raised brow, a pleased hum, her tongue licking the corner of her lips. 

“Well?” Vi asked with a smirk. 

Caitlyn fought a smile. “Yes, all right, it’s good. Delicious, even.”

Saskia turned to Vi and raised her hand for a high-five. 

Her body came alive. 

What Vi knew in her world as a grimy canal was a clean, cool glide of water with a canopy on either side for a beautiful, lush walk down the cobbled path. 

It was the perfect way to settle their full bellies. 

While they watched Saskia a few steps ahead, collecting wildflowers and scooping up bugs to count their legs, Caitlyn bumped her shoulder against Vi’s. “How do you know all this?”

Vi felt relieved that Caitlyn was comfortable with a casual display of affection again. “Just come here sometimes.”

“You do?”

She could… feel it. Vi came, went back home, kept it to herself. But maybe it was time to open up.

“This is where I come from, Cait. Where Saskia comes from. I know it’s hurt both of us deeply, but it’s still in our blood.”

“I know that,” Caitlyn said. “You’ve just never… I thought you wanted to bury it.”

“I did. I think I forgot the good parts. Or maybe I believed you’d see me differently.”

“I want to know all parts of you,” Caitlyn replied gently. “But if you need more time to figure it out on your own, that’s fine as well. ‘Different’ doesn’t scare me one bit, if that’s what worries you. We’ve changed so much since we were children, but it’s never changed us, Vi.”

Vi entwined their fingers, the only answer she could give seeing as she’d said more than her counterpart ever had. But this girl needed more of a push than the others. If it annoyed her she’d opened her mouth, she could come find her and yell if she needed to. 

“Would you like to go see them?” Caitlyn brought up more quietly. “We aren’t too far, are we?”

Vi knew what she meant instinctively and nodded. 

It was a beautiful garden, closer to a field of wildflowers, with the tombstones well looked after. 

“Do you remember the stories about Grandma Fe, button?” Caitlyn asked their daughter. 

Saskia touched her necklace as they walked toward a particular area, not too far. “She had factory lung, just like me.”

“She did, my love, only we didn’t know for a long time. So when we met you, just a few months after we’d lost her, we knew it was meant to be.”

Vi felt her knees nearly buckle as they stopped at the four tombstones lined up together. 

“And them?” Saskia asked. 

Vi didn’t know. Didn’t know what had taken her father, Vander, and Silco. Caitlyn looked at her, trying to gauge if she wanted to talk about it, but Vi shook her head. Even if she’d known, she wasn’t sure she could’ve gotten any words out.

Caitlyn kneeled behind her daughter, holding her waist. “That was Connol, your mother’s father, and then Vander and Silco were two of their closest friends. They all worked in the mines together.” 

“What happened?”

Caitlyn swallowed. “There was a terrible accident where the mine collapsed. Grandma Fe had been pregnant with your aunt at the time, so she hadn’t been there. But House Talis heard of the news and came into Zaun to help rebuild. Offer new materials to ensure it would never happen again. Jayce’s mother met Felicia on the site.” 

“Ximena!”

“That’s right,” Caitlyn smiled. “She saw right away that Felicia was incredibly skilled. Had so much light to bring to the world. They offered her a position in their first foundry, and soon she was running the place from Piltover.” 

“And you met mama,” Saskia grinned.

Vi shifted on one foot, glancing at Caitlyn, who looked up with a wistful smile. “I did. We were already four years old, but I think that’s when my life really started.”

Overwhelmed by the long day full of new enrichments, Saskia was sound asleep in Vi’s arms when they made it back home. It was a winding walk outside of Piltover, through a wooden area and onto Kiramman property. 

After tucking her in and getting into her own sleepwear, Vi tried to stall before entering the master bedroom. 

“Saskia asleep?” Caitlyn asked as she approached her. She was wearing a nightgown and had her hair down and swept to one side. 

At Vi’s nod, Caitlyn bit her lip and suddenly her expression changed. Vi knew that look. That light sway in her hips. The smile at the corner of her mouth. 

Vi sat on the edge of the bed, swallowing. 

“Today was nice,” Caitlyn said, and then she was stopping between Vi’s legs, resting her hands on her shoulders, slowly inching up to her neck. Just to touch. To find that connection again.

They held each other’s gaze. For a moment Vi lost herself completely in it—couldn’t help it—feeling every inch of this numb body finally want and yearn and crave, feeling its desire awaken so deeply in her gut. 

“Yeah, baby.”

The slip made her freeze. She didn't mean to cross these lines, but she couldn’t help these things sometimes. 

And she couldn’t help the next part either, where Caitlyn straddled her and leaned down to kiss her. 

It was hungry. Hungrier than Vi had expected. Caitlyn moaned like it wasn’t pleasure but deep relief she felt. Her tongue was in her mouth, seeking her out, caressing, and then their bodies were flush against each other, with Caitlyn starting to tremble. 

“Touch me,” she breathed out. “I need you. I need your hands on me. Your mouth.”

She brought Vi's hand to her breast, begging Vi to show her how much she wanted her, but Vi found herself stuck. 

This wasn’t her place. Her choices to make. Her Caitlyn. 

She pulled away. “Cait, I can’t, I–”

Caitlyn let out a cry of such pain that Vi knew it was weeks, if not months, in the making. There were tears in her eyes as she got up and then left the room. “I am such an idiot.” 

“Cait!”

Vi watched her leave the room, her heart pounding in her throat. Fuck.

Caitlyn was in a nook looking out into the garden when Vi found her. 

“Please spare me,” Caitlyn said quietly. “Not tonight, Vi. I’m embarrassed enough I even tried.”

“Listen-”

“I don’t need you to explain it. I won’t—I won’t try again, I promise. After today was so perfect, I just got lost in the moment.”

“Is that what we do now?” Vi asked, closing the door behind her. “Apologize for wanting each other?”

Caitlyn let out a sharp exhale. “Well, you wouldn’t need to.”

“Cait-”

“It’s fine.”

“Come on, it’s the fucking opposite of fine. This isn’t us. This isn’t me.”

Caitlyn paused at that. Had never looked more fearful. “Are you unhappy?”

Vi approached her, failing to reach for her hand. “No. No. But this isn't working. I've been trying so hard, Cait-”

“But what? You’ve been coerced into this life? Into this marriage? Into-” Caitlyn pressed a hand against her mouth.

At this, Vi had to cup her cheeks. “Never. Everything about you, about us, and Sask, is what pushes me every day.” That was the truest feeling in this body. This heart. 

“Then what?” Caitlyn whispered. 

“There’s a part of me left in Zaun that I’m forgetting. I think I’ve been fooling myself that I could be who you want me to be, but-”

Caitlyn rose. “You think I want the woman I love sleeping with her back turned to me? Barely able to stomach touching me anymore?” Her voice cracked as her eyes filled with tears. “You think I don’t count the days since you kissed me? Really kissed me like you wanted me?”  

“That’s not what I-”

“Just say it!” Caitlyn retorted shakily as she turned away. Hurting. “You may love me, but you’re not mine anymore. Put me out of this misery, Vi. Of hoping you’ll wake up happy again. Of hoping I’m enough when I’m not. I know I–”

Vi took her in her arms, heart shattering more from every word she spoke. “I’m yours, baby. I’m yours,” she repeated, because there was no world where that wasn’t true. 

Caitlyn broke, face pressed against her shoulder. 

“I need you to open up,” she cried. “I need you to trust our marriage is strong enough to survive anything, because if it isn’t, we’ve completely lost our way.”

Maybe Vi had fooled herself. Maybe she’d needed the perspective too. 

Everywhere. In all these worlds. It all came back to Zaun. The person she was because of Zaun, in spite of Zaun, thanks to Zaun. How it had shaped her and how she loved. 

“I’m lost, Cait, and it feels so selfish, because I have a family that needs me. I grew up here but it doesn’t feel like it. It never has. Maybe I thought… that to move forward I had to uproot myself, but now I look at myself in the mirror and I don’t recognize my own body. My eyes.”

Caitlyn took her hand. “When we slipped those rings on you said there was no path you wouldn’t take with me. That we’d face it all together. So please let me carry this with you, Vi. We’ve had the best years of our lives together, now we face the hard ones together too.” 

Vi felt a tingle up her spine. Sweat on her brow. She wanted to burst into tears, the oddest thing she had ever felt, if that was possible. She should’ve been elated that her counterpart was starting to fight. To see a light at the end of the mines. 

But she needed her Caitlyn now more than ever. Could understand now why she related so deeply to these contradictory feelings. Yes she had made a life here, but she had also left one behind, nipped in the bud. 

“I just need some time to figure it all out. But you, our family, are my first priority. Always.”

Caitlyn nodded, wanting desperately to believe it. 

“Can we go to bed now?” Vi murmured. “Please, baby. Let me hold you.”

Caitlyn exhaled slowly. “You haven’t called me that since the last ball.”

“I have a lot of things to fix.”

“That’s a relief, seeing as you know how to fix things so well.” 

Vi pressed her forehead against hers, smiling. Complicity. 

After they went to bed, Caitlyn stayed on her back, unsure. Vi shuffled closer, holding her tightly as she buried her face in the crook of her neck. 

“I’m never giving up on this,” she swore. “Please don’t give up on me.”

Caitlyn entwined their fingers. “There is no world where I would ever give up on you, my love.” 

She woke up entangled, with her leg over Caitlyn’s, their arms under and over each other’s. Vi felt Caitlyn’s easy breathing, and then a slight bounce on their bed. 

Saskia crawled toward them, and rested her chin on Vi's arm. "I can't fall sleep anymore," she whispered. 

Vi glanced at Caitlyn, who still seemed deep asleep. She extricated herself slowly, pushed back a strand of hair behind Caitlyn's ear, and grabbed Saskia’s hand. "Come on, let's catch some early sunshine."

They walked around the garden, where the grass was still wet from the morning dew. 

“What am I like in your world?” Saskia asked after a while. 

Vi watched her blow on a ladybug and realized she had no answer. The truth was, she had no idea what her reality meant for Saskia. If she was in a factory somewhere. If she was safe. If she even existed. The thought pained her. 

“I can’t tell, button.”

“Oh. Okay. Mama?” 

“Yeah?”

“What if you just go to sleep and think really hard about mum? In your world?”

Vi smiled. “That’s a good idea, but I already do that every night.”

“Oh.” They sat on the tiny stone bench by a tree. It wasn’t very tall and the soil still looked fresh, as if they’d planted it together just a few weeks back. 

Saskia poked her cheek. “Do you want to go back?”

Vi frowned “Of course.”

“Okay.”

“I guess… maybe I’m a little afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of losing sight of who I am.”

“What does that mean?”

Vi swallowed. “It means… I’m scared I’m no one important in my world. That I don’t really belong anywhere.” 

“You’re important. You’re mama.”

Vi chuckled. “Yeah.” Well, she couldn’t break this little girl’s heart. 

Saskia wiped the sleep from her eyes, fighting it. “Clagg said be scared and then do it anyway,” she mumbled.

“He said that?”

“And everyone who loves you catches you.”

“That’s true.”

Saskia leaned her head against Vi’s arm and grabbed her hand. “Here, I’m catching you.”

Vi laughed, tears in her eyes. “Thank you, button. I think that makes me the luckiest person in the world.”

Vi glanced toward the house and found Caitlyn waiting in the doorway, looking at them with a smile.

They’d be okay, she knew. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but this wasn't a life she would ever waste. 

It didn’t happen by Caitlyn’s side this time. One moment she was there and the next she was nowhere at all. 

Vi felt she had no body. No eyes to see with, no mouth to speak with, no ears to listen to those she loved. 

But she could feel.

She could feel water around her, something cool and weightless. She could feel a tickle down her spine, like a shiver.

There was no light and yet it didn’t feel like an endless dark, void. 

Mama? Is it you?

Vi felt fear, then.

Oh no.

Yeah, button, it’s me. I'm okay. 

Mum! Mum! 

I'm fine, Saz, I'm fine. 

No, no, no. 

She hadn’t left this body at all.

But she had no voice, no power, no control over anything.

She remembered Ekko's words with dread: The thing with parasites? Eventually they find a host that… kills it.

Vi wanted to scream. To cry out for help. But she was nothing. 

No one.

Lost. 

Just a vestige. Her counterpart had taken control again. Was holding her daughter close. Could she even feel her? Did she remember the days?

Vi, what happened? 

I'm not sure. I... I think I need to talk to Powder.

Vi felt smaller than she ever had. Weaker. 

How could she fight this? How did she leave? 

Would whatever she was now just die out slowly? Like a light shining brightly and then dimming, dimming, until it was thrown away, replaced. What about her body? 

She tried to focus. Tried to think of the tether. 

To remember Saskia's words. She'd been avoiding pain, right? Well, fuck that. She wanted her pain back. Wanted to feel it all, because it was hers. 

Vi felt something then.

Small.

A warmth against the tips of her fingers.

A breeze in her ear. 

Darling, it’s pouring. I know you can’t sleep without the window open, but really… can I close it? 

Caitlyn. Her Cait. Always complaining about the chills in the dead of night, yet she never got up to close the window. She only ever shuffled closer to Vi’s body, which felt like a furnace on any night, and Vi figured she just wanted an excuse to cuddle. 

She was talking to her. 

Which surely meant she had a body. She was there! In the room! But… how did she hold on, damnit? 

“Vi?”

Vi felt like she'd been hit by a boulder. A ringing faded in and out. 

She could open her eyes, but didn't want to. It would kill her if this wasn't home. She couldn't do this any longer. 

"Vi, it's me," Caitlyn whispered. "You're all right. I'm here."

Vi smiled weakly, and finally, finally, she knew exactly where she was. 

Her first thought when she cracked an eye open was that in every world, Caitlyn and her had fit together just the way they were. Not perfect, not without their flaws to work out, or their problems to face, but they fought for and with each other, wanted to learn from each other, and that was all that mattered.

But none of them had been hers. 

None of them the woman she’d gone to war with. The woman she was building this life with. 

“They don’t hold a candle to you,” were Vi's first words, said with a croak. 

“Oh, Vi,” Caitlyn breathed out in relief, cupping her face so gently Vi had to lean into the touch to really feel it. “I need to get the doctor, but I’ll be right back.”

“Gotta say, I might be the one getting lost somewhere else.”

Caitlyn smiled at her, her arm tight and warm and secure around her waist, everything Vi had missed. 

“Darling, I'll find you wherever you go.”

Chapter Text

There was a fair amount of retching. Of Vi’s body trying to purge itself without really knowing how. Her throat and esophagus started to hurt, raw and irritated, and then her entire body joined in, hurtling between intense vertigo, chills, high temperatures and the eerie feeling she was readying herself for something. 

Vi realized between two delirious dreams that she was bracing for another world. That her mind hadn’t quite settled back home just yet. That maybe this wasn’t real after all, oh but—

“I’m here,” Caitlyn would whisper, applying cold or warm compresses day and night. She ate in the room, slept in the room, sometimes in the armchair because she worried she’d accidentally kick Vi’s shin in her sleep or something, which was absurd, but so was traveling through worlds. 

All this time, Caitlyn was her tether. Her assurance she was really back. Yet Vi struggled to cling to their bedroom. Whenever she felt herself dozing off, she would startle herself awake, gripped by dread. Was she home? Was Caitlyn? 

“You have to sleep,” Caitlyn would say, and Vi would nod because she knew best, and the doctor knew best, but still…

Did they know how slippery her mind was? 

And then came the dreams.

The first was hard to make out. Like watching reflections in a pond. Somehow it still made sense to her. She understood the fractals, the feelings, the colors. 

Vi dreamt that she figured it out, wherever she was. That she taught Caitlyn about Zaun. That they fell in love walking through the streets, eating at Jericho’s and other cornerstones of the Lanes, fixing the vents, extending the repairs and the projects to the lower levels, talking to the people they met, and helping the families scared away in the shadows of Chem-Barons. 

She dreamt that she picked up Caitlyn at the bathysphere again and again. At first she was empty-handed. Pretending to look tough. To act tough. Like the whole thing was an inconvenience to her, but she’d do it anyway. Did this councilor really care? Was she up for reelection or something? 

Vi still fought in the pit—still busted her face and her knuckles—and Loris still carried her home. But then one night where Vi really couldn’t stand, there was Caitlyn’s arm around her waist too. Loris and her were whispering in a corner of her shithole apartment, and Vi was seeing blurry surely, because why did a councilor help out a sumprat with a broken nose? 

Whatever. Vi would show her the city, then. Not like she had much else going. 

The fractals shifted and the feelings rose. Vi dreamt Caitlyn made her smile. No, not just smile, more like grin, and then laugh so hard her cheeks hurt. 

Vi hadn’t laughed in years. It felt good. It felt painful too, because here she was laughing while her sister and her brothers were buried. Here she was living, while her sister hadn’t seen her twelfth birthday. 

But the thought didn’t make rage and hatred bubble up in her chest this time. She just left the bar and broke down in the alley.

Caitlyn sat next to her and didn’t say a thing, until finally she took Vi in her arms and then took her home. 

It was the first time in years Vi slept through the night. She woke up with puffy eyes in a clean room, covered in a soft blanket, with a glass of water on the nightstand and a note: 

Good morning, Vi. I haven’t stopped thinking about this fabled arcade of yours. I know you’d beat me at boxing, but I’m an excellent shot, and I think the points tally could tip in my favor. Shall we find out on our next meet? The drinks are on me. - Caitlyn. 

That was Vi’s second laugh of the week. From then on she didn’t come empty-handed at the bathysphere. A pastry, some wildflowers, a book, whatever would make Caitlyn blush. And eventually it felt less like showing Caitlyn her city and more like dating. 

The jaded pit-fighter and the councilor. It raised eyebrows. But Vi found her way out of that pit, out of the bottles, and one day she even looked at Powder’s drawing with a smile, remembering her little hand in hers, her giggles, her bright colors and bright ideas. 

Vi had good people around her who wanted her happiness, and she had a woman by her side who chose to fight for her and the city she loved. 

So naturally she took her in a pipe one evening and kissed her in the dark, their shadows stretching down the curved walls. 

“One day I woke up right here after the weirdest headtrip of my life and you were staring down at me, asking if I was all right. I was so far from all right, Cait. But for some reason you kept coming and… now I want to build a good life. I want to think about the future.”

Caitlyn looked speechless, eyes wide and hands trembling on Vi’s waist. 

“Did I kiss you stupid, councilor?”

Caitlyn’s mouth fell open and then she stuttered, smiling like she was daydreaming, “Not quite yet. Try again?”

When Vi opened her eyes, finding Caitlyn in bed next to her, breathing quietly, she half-wondered if she’d stepped inside that dream again. That world. 

But then came the anomaly, or whatever it was Vi had felt rotting inside her and refusing to be coughed up. 

She let out a shout as she jolted up and grabbed the basin by the bed. There was no dry-heaving this time, instead a painful expel of a thick, gluey substance. 

“What is that?” Caitlyn couldn’t help but say as they both stared at the iridescent glob. Neither would have the answer, but it was enough to see the visible relief on Vi’s face. 

She wiped her mouth and exhaled, catching her breath before she looked at Caitlyn. “That’s me back home for good I think.” 

Caitlyn touched her forehead. “You’re not hot anymore.” 

“Shit, cupcake, you’re hurting my feelings,” Vi replied, cracking her first smile in days.

Even though there were dark circles beneath Caitlyn’s eyes, her joy shone through. 

“You are most definitely back.”

Vi touched her own body, prodding at her muscles, her hair humid with sweat, her stomach, her thighs. This was it. The familiar bones holding her all together. 

“About that…” 

While Caitlyn was somewhat clued in thanks to Ekko having shared his own experience with the anomaly (though her and Vi suspected there were many pieces he kept to himself), she didn’t fully understand the science of it all, let alone the magic. That was good, because neither did Vi. 

“I just knew it wasn’t really me. I felt lighter or heavier. My head wasn’t right.”

The more Vi thought about it, the harder it was to describe. Her brain couldn’t fully wrap itself around the whole thing. Needed to protect her. What better way to do it than repress it? 

But Vi didn’t want to forget. 

“I held my sister, Cait,” she whispered as Caitlyn shuffled closer to her. 

“Tell me about her,” Caitlyn encouraged.

Vi swallowed, thinking of the different versions of her. “She was fighting to make a better world. She was scared, I could see it in her eyes, but she kept it in. I followed her, because… I don’t know, it was just how we worked there. We made a good team.”

Caitlyn reached for her hand because she knew there were no words that could soothe this type of pain. 

“Well, in the next one she was more relaxed at least. Showed our ki—” Vi stopped herself, suddenly remembering Saskia’s freckled face and button nose. Hearing her peel of laughter. 

“Our…?” Caitlyn prompted. 

“Hm.”

Leave it to Caitlyn to understand the unsaid. “Oh,” she said, eyes widening a bit. “Well… that’s different.”

Vi let out a puff of amusement, meeting her eyes. “Yeah.”

Caitlyn rested her head on Vi’s shoulder, settling in the quiet of the room for a moment. 

“Maybe not quite… us, as of now.”

Vi had to agree with that. The structure of their life together was so completely different here, but the door was open for conversation. Maybe someday. 

“I really wish you’d met Powder,” she murmured. “I mean, before… what could’ve been. And my brothers, too.”

“You told me Mylo would’ve loathed me,” Caitlyn recalled with a smile. 

Vi chuckled. “Definitely. But he acted like a brat toward most people. That’s how he loved. Had all these… fears he didn’t know how else to express.”

She’d never realized until months after the war. Until her days had finally gotten long and quiet enough to sit and think. To look back at her memories with a different view. She’d never allowed it in Stillwater. Thoughts like that made her crack open, and it was no place to show weakness. 

“Vi…” Caitlyn trailed off, and it was that tone Vi knew so well by now. The hesitation and the worry. 

“I know, Cait. I know what you’re thinking.” 

All these years and they’d had the conversation multiple times, but it wasn’t one Vi could ever really finish. 

“Is that why you don’t want to go?” Caitlyn asked. “Because we might-”

“Break the cycle—that’s what she said,” Vi replied. “That’s what she wanted. You think if she was… out there… I could rob her of that? Of the choice she made for herself?”

She got out of bed, standing on weak legs at first. She looked out the window toward the yard, noticing the grass had grown a little taller. Caitlyn stood by her side. 

“You think I don’t see how much it pains you every day?” Caitlyn asked. “You think I would rob you of that decision?”

“No. I know that’s not why you want us to go.”

Vi motioned toward the shower, no other words needed for now. 

Caitlyn helped her undress and then undressed as well, helping Vi step inside. She pulled the knobs up and down, pressed on a switch, quickly turning the shower into a steamy, luxurious dream. 

“I’m on a cloud,” Vi said, closing her eyes as the water splashed on her shoulders and chest. 

Caitlyn kissed her back, smiling, “Will you ever stop saying that?”

“No, because I’m on a cloud.” 

Caitlyn held her from behind, arms going around her waist as Vi fell into the feeling of being in this body again. The familiarity of water against her own skin; heat rising to her own cheeks. Her Caitlyn holding her. Her lips against her shoulder blades, tracing the lines of her tattoo. Her breasts against her back. 

Vi felt everything so keenly. Could’ve stayed there for days. 

But maybe that was another form of hiding. 

“I’ve been left behind so many times,” she said with a tremble. “I’m finally doing something that matters here. I help Ekko; I’ve got Vander’s bar back. We protect our people from the scum that try to take advantage of them. We know how to handle the Chem-Barons. We do good things, don’t we? Things that matter?”

“I know, my love. You do. But for five years that’s all you’ve done. Don’t you deserve to see new wonders too? To live for yourself, at least for a little while?” 

Vi turned around, looking into Caitlyn’s eye. Her hair was curling from the steam and there were deep signs of sleepless nights, but Vi could’ve waxed poetic about her for weeks, and she was no poet by trade. 

Somehow she didn’t look at all like the other Caitlyns. Knowing her so deeply, trusting her so implicitly with her own feelings, had Vi head over boots for her only.  

And that was more potent than any magic. 

“I don’t know what that looks like, Cait.”

Caitlyn brushed back the floppy strand of wet hair from Vi’s eyes. “Well, darling, nothing would make me happier than helping you discover that.” 

She helped Vi wash, and in between the lathering and rinsing, there was a fair amount of Vi just needing to be held and Caitlyn needing to do the holding. To feel that Vi was standing and breathing in her arms. Feel that she was here, moving against her, and not just a body in bed, her mind lost to a different world. 

Vi remembered sharing a shower in Babette’s underground shelter, only it was another Caitlyn who had needed the gentle handling. She wondered how much their lives entwined. If they ever spoke of the same things at the same time. Laughed while they cried. Grieved while they celebrated. 

“Are you somewhere else again?” Caitlyn asked. 

“I’m okay,” Vi promised her. She could read the worry on Caitlyn’s face, how she didn’t want to seem so nervous but couldn’t hide it from her. 

Caitlyn let out a long exhale, her shoulders falling, “Every day, every minute… I hoped you would open your eyes and say those words.”

Vi cupped her cheek. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Caitlyn leaned into the touch, and then her lip quivered. “I knew something was wrong. I knew and I waited, because everyone was coming to me with their absurd, petty problems, and their false—” she let out a shudder full of anger, her eyes filling with tears. “I can’t believe you were in that mine alone for so long. I failed you, Vi, I-”

Vi shook her head. “You found me and you kept me safe after, that’s all that matters.”

Caitlyn had told her the story briefly. How she’d rushed to Zaun once Vi hadn't shown up at the fundraiser. How she’d found Ekko and they’d pieced together her probable last steps. Found her in the mine out like a light, her body wet from the squelching, rotted out fungi, fumes still hanging in the air like clouds. 

She’d stayed in an emergency clinic the first night, but it was soon established that aside from a fever she was… well, for all intents and purposes, fine. As if simply asleep, her body breathing on its own, her hands sometimes responding to stimuli, squeezing back here and there. 

Ekko had offered his theory of course, though Caitlyn hadn’t wanted to believe it. Hadn’t wanted to believe Vi could be somewhere she couldn’t reach. It puzzled and fascinated him that her body was still there. That, seemingly, only her mind had traveled. 

Until Vi had spoken words. Had said ‘Loris’ and ‘councilor’ and her sister’s name. And then that word, ‘parasite’, over and over again. Words that hadn’t made sense to them, like she’d been jumping around. One moment troubled, the next quiet. She’d been there but not really. Sometimes her body had gone completely still, and in those moments Caitlyn had tried to speak to her, to coax her home. 

“You brought me back,” Vi told her, and then kissed her firmly under the stream of the shower. 

When she pulled back, Caitlyn had a dazed look on her face. “One way or another I was going to. I’m sorry to whoever you met, but this world needs you in it. I... need you.”

Vi rubbed her thumb over Caitlyn’s jawline. “You’ve got me, Sheriff.”

“Please, none of that in here."

“Why not? I’ve got the sheriff’s heart. Makes me feel pretty damn important.”

Caitlyn pressed their lips together again, only pulling back to say, “You’re important regardless of whose heart you have.” 

It was a day of doing nothing. The doctor—Vi knew his kind face and hands from her… err, frequent scraps over the years—came and went. He declared Vi needed plenty more rest, fresh air, and to get her appetite back.

That was no problem for Vi, who inhaled the hot soup Caitlyn managed to prepare and then asked for seconds. The whole pot actually. 

They lazed around in the library, on the long couch Caitlyn loved to read on, right in the patch of sun for a moment. Vi nestled between her legs, face on her stomach, while Caitlyn ran her fingers through her hair, braiding and unbraiding some strands, anything to keep touching.

“I had it real short at one point,” Vi shared. 

Caitlyn stopped what she was doing, then let out a pleased little sound, as if she’d just imagined it. 

Vi looked up. “Ink black, though.”

”Oh.” Caitlyn tried to stop herself from scrunching her nose up. “Whatever you like.”

“So predictable,” Vi laughed. 

Caitlyn huffed. “You know there’s only one way to follow up that line, don’t you?” 

Vi crawled up her body and hovered above her, nudging her nose against hers. “What would that be, gorgeous?”

For all her qualities on the job and what was required to handle her weapon, the sheriff could be terribly impatient in matters of the heart. She reached up to kiss Vi, not in the least bit shy. 

Vi flicked her tongue inside her mouth, amused when Caitlyn rubbed her foot against her calf in response. Vi often made fun of her ridiculously low socks, but now they were another reminder that- 

“I’m home,” she said, smiling when Caitlyn hummed in agreement. 

“Can a feeling be a world of its own?” Caitlyn murmured. “If so, I could live in this one forever.”

“As long as you take me with you,” Vi replied. “You who hogs the sheets, argues about directions, burns toast, thinks about a joke for an hour to make sure it’s funny-”

“I sound like a drip.”

Vi shook her head. “You sound like the woman I couldn’t wait to get back to.”

Caitlyn kissed her again. “I missed you against me. Your voice. Your laugh.”

For a while it was all they did: bask in the feeling of each other again. The simple things, like a finger running down a shoulder; the breathy chuckles between two sentences; Vi asking Caitlyn to help her buzz her hair later; Caitlyn dozing off for a few minutes and startling awake, only to breathe easy again when Vi nuzzled her neck. 

Later Vi walked around the room pulling out books from the shelves, trying to find her next read. She usually enjoyed reading. The escape of it all. But she’d had enough of that recently. 

“I saw Jayce,” Vi said quietly. It came out without thinking about it. 

Caitlyn froze, looking up from her book. 

“Just the once,” Vi added. 

Caitlyn nodded mutely, then set the book aside and sat up straight. 

“Was he… did he seem…?”

“Happy?” Vi guessed. “I don’t know. But the city was thriving. Zaun, too. He had you in his corner and-”

“Me?”

“Well…”

“Right. Yes, right.”

“Don’t worry, I never got used to it.”

“How many do you think there are?” Caitlyn wondered, mystified by it all. “It’s so… I mean… how could-”

“I have no idea,” Vi admitted, fond of that little scrunch in Caitlyn’s nose whenever she was confused by something. “There were… variations, different choices with different outcomes. That’s as far as I could understand. ‘How, why, where’… beats me.” 

Caitlyn nodded, getting up to join her by the nook overlooking their garden. 

“Thank you for telling me. I’m glad he’s growing old somewhere,” she said. “Was my mo… was…”

Vi nodded. “In some, she was.”

Caitlyn’s eye flickered closed and then she gave a small smile. “We should go for a stroll. Get some air. Stretch your legs.”

Vi offered her hand. There would be more occasions to talk about it all later. She suspected her stories would trickle out over time. Caitlyn asking questions and Vi doing her best to make sense of it all. Well, Caitlyn would try too of course. She hated an unsolved mystery. 

The window was open and there was a midnight breeze blowing in. A gentle tickle against Vi’s neck. Deeper and deeper she fell, her body tired out despite the laziness of the day. 

It wasn’t long before Vi dreamt about a small, messy office with mugshots on the walls, missing posters, red and blue threads connecting dots on giant maps. There was a pot of coffee on one desk and a steaming cup of tea on the other. 

The scene changed. 

Yes, she remembered now. She was staring at her scars in the mirror, tracing the long, jagged lines with her eyes. The silver-blue tint that made it impossible to conceal them. 

Vi didn’t care about their appearance, only what they reminded her of every damn day. 

There was a feeling of smoke then. Her senses came alive. Laughter, bottles clinking, and shady dealings reached her ears. 

She was undercover in a factory, where Chem-Barons smoked shimmer pipes and their lackeys took the abuse thrown at them. It was a party, a celebration of some sort where everyone wore a mask. Yet some of those eyes looked empty, as if you could shine a light directly at them and they wouldn’t even blink. 

Vi had never seen so many Barons in one place. No fucking wonder she was there. 

And then the crowd parted, or at least it seemed that way. Of course they didn’t. They were too strung out to give a shit who was shouldering past them. 

Caitlyn had put on a dress beneath her suit jacket, and her mask was black lace. No matter the mask, nothing could’ve fooled Vi. Those eyes had her heart in her throat. She couldn’t have looked away even if she’d wanted to try. 

Even if she should’ve paid attention to Smeech and his ugly goons gambling in the corner, talking business like it was all a game to them. 

Oh yeah, Vi should’ve paid attention, but look… Caitlyn was wearing that and Vi was human. 

Even beneath her mask, she knew every inch of Caitlyn’s face. Could guess the flush on her cheeks when they stopped in front of each other and instead of giving her some information, she leaned close to Caitlyn's ear and asked,

“You dance, detective?” 

And indeed she did.

When they danced in shimmer smoke, it felt like they were the only people in the world. Fuck the mission, Vi thought. Caitlyn turned around in her arms, nestled back into her and let out a laugh that Vi would’ve engraved in her soul if she could’ve. 

She’d remember that laugh on her death bed, she knew. She’d remember it in her darkest moments, when she was at her lowest, when she didn’t see a point to any of it. 

That laugh changed it all. 

Vi didn’t feel like making light of anything anymore. Like pretending it was a fun night out with her business partner. It didn’t help that some of the goons stared at Caitlyn, not because they’d figured her out, but because they wanted a piece for themselves.

As if, you fucking dogs. 

Vi didn’t realize her hands went to Caitlyn’s waist. That she pulled her in closer than she would have, before. 

Their lips almost met.

But here’s the thing of it all: Vi hesitated, simply because it was muscle memory. Because she’d forced herself to hesitate in every single close situation before. Every damn time this might’ve ever happened, when they were drunk, when they were vulnerable, when they were happy and thinking maybe, maybe… 

So there too, she pulled back. 

Of course Caitlyn, not daring to ever hope for it anymore, would’ve looked out for it. 

Of course it broke the spell. 

Caitlyn ripped herself away from the embrace, her heart breaking in half. Nothing had changed. Nothing had changed. 

Vi followed her outside the factory, out in the alleys, always, always twenty steps behind. Why? Why couldn’t she give in? Who was she fighting? She loved her already. It was selfish. Someone had told her that by trying to keep herself from hurting, she was the one doing the hurting. 

Or had she known that all along? 

She caught Caitlyn’s wrist but Caitlyn begged her to stop. Not to let go, but to let her go. She couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t pretend. So if Vi could say the words once and for all, that she would never love her back the way she wanted, that they would never be together; if Vi could crush her hope as a mercy, with time they could work together again. 

Caitlyn swore she would do everything to kill her feelings. Their business came first, she knew that. 

“Just say the words, please, Vi, put an end to all this, I need to hear it, and then I’ll bury it all so deep, I’ll move on, I promise you I’ll–”

Oh, fuck this, Vi put an end to it all all right. She grabbed her face and kissed her so intently they staggered back against a steam valve and Vi groaned in pain. 

No matter, Caitlyn kissed her again. Ripped the stupid masks off, because that’s how it would be between them from now on. No more hiding. 

They weren’t able to keep their hands to themselves as they rushed through the city. It was a sweet, slow torture back to Vi’s apartment, but it was punctuated by so much kissing, so much grinning in disbelief, that the time between felt like paradise anyway. 

There weren’t many options in Vi’s place—the wall, the tiny block of wood in the kitchen, the single bed, the cubicle shower—and so for the purpose of being thorough, each option was explored. 

Twice.

Vi dreamt they were in Caitlyn’s bed, their bodies sweaty and tangled, but Caitlyn’s fears caught up again:

“Working together and living together… you’ll get tired of me.”

Vi laughed. Barked out a laugh even. “Haven’t been tired of you in over ten years, but you think the sex is gonna drive me away. Well, detective, I gotta say, I’m starting to doubt your smarts.”  

And that was all Caitlyn needed before kissing her again. 

The dreams felt easy to wake up from. Vi didn’t know why they kept coming. Didn’t know if they were reality for her counterparts, or just her mind’s musings. Wishful thinking, maybe. How could she get such glimpses into their worlds when she was now firmly rooted to hers? 

Then again, how had any of it happened in the first place? 

No matter. 

Vi felt Caitlyn in her arms and took her time opening her eyes. 

They didn’t always wake up tangled together. They both liked their space in bed, in different ways. Vi was too used to making herself small to ever stop. She liked sleeping at the edge of the bed with her legs curled up; liked the feeling of a fast exit. She’d never needed it here, but it was just one of those instinctual things she couldn’t shake.  

Caitlyn was a fidgety sleeper. Kicking her feet out. Stretching out her arms. Tossing and turning to find the right position. Drawn to Vi’s warmer body but then remembering Vi liked her space, so shifting away again, only for Vi to grab her wrist and tug her close anyway. 

Of course there were the slow, naked mornings in each other’s embrace too, but there were no ill feelings when waking up two pillows apart. That went without saying.  

Vi couldn’t complain about a morning like this either, with Caitlyn stretched out on her body like she was her raft at sea. She’d noticed Caitlyn had been nervous about touching her for too long. More flitting in her touches, as if unsure of what Vi needed.

This felt good. Perfect, even. 

Vi wrapped her arms around Caitlyn’s shoulders and exhaled. Another glorious day home. 

She met with Ekko in the afternoon. Caitlyn had stayed away from work as much as she could, and Vi knew life had to go on again. 

The markets opened, the shops and eateries filled up, the businesses sent their letters and met their clients, the birds sang, the crowds gathered, and so on. 

The world hadn’t stopped for her, and thank fuck for that. Vi just wanted to get back into the swing of it. Fill her lungs with the air of her streets. Catch up with the regulars at the bar. Help her sheriff brainstorm ways to better help the lower levels of Zaun. 

She wanted the routine of it all, but she had to admit what Caitlyn had said was working its way into her thoughts a little bit more every day. Maybe she wanted new things too, just to see what the fuss was all about. 

“Good to see you standing,” Ekko said. 

They were in his little corner of ingenuity—that’s what Scar called it. The space he’d carved out for himself years ago, far up in the Firelights’ tree. 

“Where’s your head at?” he later asked, both of them sitting around his low table. There were blueprints and sketches for gadgets and bigger plans stacked all over it. 

Vi had a more pressing question: “Ekko, was she… was she happy?”

He swallowed before nodding, knowing already she was asking about her sister, in the world he’d seen. “Nowhere is perfect, Vi.” 

“I know that. But somewhere with you is pretty close, isn’t it?”

He chuckled. “Damn, no wonder you have the sheriff wrapped around your finger.” 

 She smiled, waiting for his answer. 

“Yeah, I believe she has a good life, but she doesn’t have-” he stopped himself, mulling over the words. “Who’s to say what ‘happy’ looks like for someone else?” 

“You talk about her in the present.”

“How else would I talk about her? How would you?”

“I don’t know. I feel like I’m bound to forget, and then one day I’ll wonder if it ever happened at all. If I didn’t just slip into a deep sleep and make it all up.”

“You do know, Vi. You felt the water on your face, didn’t you? You tasted food and smelled the air there. I bet you even had dreams when you slept. You know it was real, and so do I. You learned things in those worlds that you remember now. You’re changed, Vi, and dreams don’t change you. Not fundamentally.” 

“You kept me from spinning out of control, you know. Well, one of you anyway. Helped me make some sense of it.”

“Of course I did,” he smiled. “Wish I could have a conversation with myself sometimes.”

“That’s called thinking, Little Man.”

“Smartass. You’re the only one who actually understands what I mean now.”

“Hm. Thanks, Ekko.”

“Any time. Hey, if you ever decide to explore deep again, ask me. You obviously need a guide these days.”

She snorted. “I could find my way out of the fissures with my hands behind my back and a blindfold on.” 

“I’d love to see that—are pictures allowed? For when I catch you tripping into the canal.”

Vi showed him her middle finger as she got up. He grinned. “Didn’t think so.”

Vi dreamt of Ekko tinkering with his glider and then Powder showing him how to fix it.

She dreamt of a city ravaged by war, topside and bottom tearing each other apart, and for what?

There were war plans and maps laid out on tables. She was leading her people into sewers, fighting Noxians and Enforcers, coughing in a haze of smoke, dodging bullets and explosions. A Noxian was running toward her, but a bullet whizzed in the air and took him down. Vi looked up, up, up, toward a rooftop, and huffed. 

“Oh you’re gonna brag about that one, hotshot.”

She dreamt that she went home, to a shack in a hideout. It was different from what she remembered. More isolated from the other makeshift homes around the tree.

She was splashing her face with water from a basin, washing off the sweat, the grime, and the eye black. She saw her reflection on the surface, her hair closer to copper again, her eyes tired but more alive. 

And then she felt two arms around her waist. Felt lips against the back of her neck. Vi turned around, brushed a gentle finger over Caitlyn’s eyepatch, and wiped off some dust there.

“That’s the west corridor back in our hands,” she said. 

Caitlyn rested her head against her shoulder and together they breathed out quietly. “Tomorrow it’ll be the cannery.”

Vi heard the growing commotion outside; the celebrations underway. So many civilians had taken up arms alongside them. 

There was still so much to do. They couldn’t get distracted. They couldn’t let their guard down a second, but there was something different in the air. 

“And one day it’ll be Zaun,” she hoped aloud, arms tight around Caitlyn’s waist, knowing each day could be their last. 

Caitlyn looked up. Her cheeks were fuller now and she looked healthy. Strong. 

“You scared me today.”

Vi could see it in her eyes. “I only took the risk because I had you covering for me. Some shot that was.”

“They’re getting impatient,” Caitlyn said. “They’re not moving as one anymore. You see the cracks in their behavior every day. I don’t think Noxus is as supportive as they claim.”

“Would explain the slower shipments.”

Caitlyn nodded. “They can’t win a war of attrition if their soldiers aren’t being replaced.” 

They startled away from each other as Powder cleared her throat in the entrance. It wasn’t perfect. There was still so much doubt in her sister’s eyes, but Caitlyn was trying. Caitlyn was proving herself day and night, without fail. 

“We need to go over the cannery again,” Powder said.

Vi nodded and squeezed Caitlyn’s hand. It would be some time before she was allowed in that war room. Maybe the day would never come. Caitlyn didn’t mind being a soldier, as long as she could fight on their side. 

“I’ll be right back, hotshot,” Vi promised, and it was the most alive her eyes had ever looked. Caitlyn must’ve seen it too, because her doubt and her worry faded. 

Every day, they were closer to a free Zaun. 

Vi woke up in the basement of the bar. Right, she’d taken a nap. Her head still fuzzy, she went up the stairs and surveyed her workplace. Vander’s pride and joy. Her home for so long. 

She wondered how a version of her could be fighting for her life every day, running past heavy debris and columns of smoke, and here she was wondering what band the bar could bring in. 

But then again, she’d seen her share of loss. It seemed like a common trait in all these worlds. Not that Vi wanted to be competing against herself. 

“I think the Tank Labs are cool,” Scar brought up. The evening had come around, with their regulars starting to pour in. It wouldn’t be long until the factory workers swung by from their shifts and the bar really came alive.  

“You think every band with woodwinds is cool.”

“Hey, I’m not the one with the spotless sax in my old digs.” 

“Stop going through that damn trunk,” she grumbled. 

“Go home, Vi,” he laughed. “You’re not supposed to be back here yet.”

“Says who?”

“Says everyone who loves you. Rest up, boss, we’ve got the place covered.”

“Don’t call me that,” she grunted as she left. 

The streets were filling up; the shops closing and the workers leaving their posts. Vi needed to get back to Piltover, otherwise she’d have Caitlyn worrying for nothing. 

Her head still felt fuzzy at times and her stomach nauseous. She’d need to be patient with herself.  

She made her way toward the bathysphere, looking around at her neighborhood. Her city. She belonged here, but Zaun was doing well for itself. With or without her, they would do well. 

Vi glanced toward a footbridge and froze. A little girl was pointing toward a building and then laughed. The woman whose hand she was holding gave her a smile and then off they went. 

There was no doubt it was Saskia, with the same thick head of hair and infectious grin. The woman had dark hair like hers pulled back in two braids. She looked young—younger than Vi—and was balancing a bag of food on her hip. Even still, she never let go of Saskia. Listened to her prattle on like she was sharing the secrets of the world.

So it’d been real. Had to be, right? Why else would Vi recognize a child she’d never seen before. She wouldn’t have noticed them otherwise. Just mother and child milling about. 

But here it would seem her story was different. She was still in Zaun, with that same bounce in her step yet clinging to a different mother’s hand. Or perhaps it was a sister; an aunt.

Vi wondered what decision, what event had changed Saskia’s life forever in the other world. If a Chem-Baron had pulled this family into a destructive spiral until lives had been irreparably ruined and lost. If her parents had taken a wrong turn. Been at the wrong place at the wrong time, and then their child had vanished in the city’s underbelly. One of hundreds. Thousands. 

Vi could only hope they lived in the Lanes here. Chem-Barons didn’t mess with their people anymore. Saskia would stay safe. Her family too. 

Walking through the front gate of the Kiramman estate, it occurred to Vi that she felt quite close to her counterpart in front of the Kiramman lodge. That nagging sense of being the odd sock out. 

Vi found Caitlyn at her desk, keying through archives. She leaned against the wall and watched her for a second, with no illusion Caitlyn hadn’t heard her coming in. 

“I was just about to send in a patrol.” 

Vi smirked. “They wouldn’t be able to find their way to my hiding nooks with a map and an X marks the spot.” 

Caitlyn stood with a smile, walking toward her. She was still in uniform, hair in her bun. “I think I know the lay of the land quite well by now.”

Vi’s hands rested on Caitlyn’s hips while hers traveled up her chest to her neck. “Which land are you talking about?”

Caitlyn let out a small laugh. “You’ve gotten me used to better lines, darling.” 

“I’m rusty. Let me practice.” Vi thought for a second and then huffed. “You know what, I’m more show than tell.”

She kissed her as she’d wanted all day, ever since their parting kiss in the morning. This one was no goodbye, rather making her intent clear. Vi had been tired for days, and her body had been sore, not to mention her insides had felt like mush, but enough. 

Vi had a need to make her world only Caitlyn tonight. To feel her tremble beneath her touch, feel her hips move against her, seeking out relief, to hear her moans, to bury her fingers and her tongue inside her, lap up all she had to offer. 

They stumbled toward their bedroom, shedding their clothes with every step. Laughing breathily the more skin was revealed, as if they didn’t know every inch already. 

They were in the doorway when Caitlyn pulled back, cheeks flush. 

“Hold on, I thought you said… uh, that we were… in these worlds…?”

“Cait,” Vi interrupted with a smile, “You were in all of them.”

“Yes, right, but then did you not… ah…”

“No, they weren’t you.”

“Oh. I’d thought maybe… well I tried not to think about it all that much.” 

“Not jealous, are you?”

“No, no, that would be silly,” Caitlyn scoffed as she undid her bun, catching her breath at the same time. Her hair tumbled past her shoulders like a waterfall. “We’re talking about you experiencing something so vastly mind-boggling and life-altering. I mean, you went through such a transformative-” Caitlyn paused. “Why in the world are you giving me that look now?”

Vi laughed. “Because you babble, and I love every second of it.”

Caitlyn frowned. “I don’t babble.”

Vi grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the bed. “Yeah, yeah, we can go back to the mind-bending shit later, can’t we?”

Caitlyn stuttered, fixated on her lips and distracted by Vi’s hand on the small of her back. “Well, yes, are you sure you’re-”

Vi kissed her again. Not a kiss you gave someone you didn’t really know, where clumsiness was erotic because it meant the beginning of something new, but a kiss where everything fell into place, because it wasn’t new but it was still exciting. Because the years hadn’t tempered their hunger; if anything, the hunger felt deeper now. 

There was so much behind every flick of tongue and smile. There were old memories and senses getting awakened every second, like the smell of Caitlyn’s untied hair reminding Vi of their first shower together. Of gentle, caring hands on fresh wounds, of kisses against wet skin and exhausted muscles. 

Or Caitlyn’s timid smile when she took off her eyepatch. It wasn’t always easy for her and she didn’t always do it. The scar was bumpy, the skin around it pinched, and despite the prosthetic, she preferred daily life with the eyepatch. She’d tried the newfangled tech before it, taken the meds she needed to ensure her body didn’t reject it, but then the headaches had started, debilitating and relentless, until finally Caitlyn had been through with it all. 

“Unless that would look unattractive to you, because obviously you do see me more than I-”

“Cait,” Vi had whispered, “I just want you to wake up with a smile again.”

“Well, with a face like yours on the pillow next to mine… that’s easy.” 

All of it to say, Vi kissed the woman she loved like they’d spent months apart, because it sure as hell felt like it in her bones. 

They fell into bed and it wasn’t long before the sheets bunched on the floor; before the pillows were tossed to the side. 

Vi felt selfish for a while, nearly begging Caitlyn to wrap her thighs around her head. To smother her in her taste and smell. She needed it viscerally. Caitlyn obliged even if the words hadn’t been explicit. She knew her tells by now. Knew that look in her eyes and, well—

She needed her mouth badly too.

Much later, in the hush of the night, as they lay awake naked and spent in each other’s arms, Vi couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. 

“That line to your liking then?”

Caitlyn chuckled, turning her head to kiss her breastbone. “Which one? I recall several.”

“Told you I needed practice.”

“If that was practice, I think the main event might send me into an anomaly.”

Vi let out a laugh, completely in love. Caitlyn shifted to look at her, listening to her favorite sound with the sweetest smile. 

“You’ve completely taken over me,” she said, almost to herself.

“That a good thing?” Vi asked, reaching up to brush Caitlyn’s hair behind her ear. 

“Like the wisteria on the walls of the house. You make everything much nicer, darling.”

“You’re on a roll.”

“Well, I had plenty of time to brush up on my lines.”

“Hm, I was a bit busy.”

Caitlyn kissed up her neck and then husked, “Be busier now.” 

Vi felt a blush creep on her cheeks. Damn. Yes. She turned her head and kissed her deeply, shifting to be on top, amused when Caitlyn pushed her off and wrestled to be back on top herself, and then not laughing so much when Caitlyn kissed her way down her chest, her abs, tender and very eager. 

“Allow me,” she purred, and then Vi was busy indeed, her hands lost in Caitlyn’s hair and her thoughts wiped clean. 

Vi dreamt of strands of red copper hair on the bathroom floor of the Kiramman lodge. 

She dreamt she stepped out of a shower and wiped off the steam on the mirror, catching a glimpse of herself. A side of her hair was buzzed, the other longer now. She looked like herself.

She felt like herself.

She cleaned up the floor and dressed up in slacks, hesitating on the suit jacket. In the end she wore no jacket at all, only a simple shirt with the sleeves rolled up. 

The steam cleared and the bathroom was spotless now, yet she struggled to open the door. To step out. It was different—that look. Maybe Caitlyn would hate it. Maybe Saskia would think it was silly. 

Vi dreamt she exhaled deeply and went out of the room. She found her wife and child in the garden, dressed up too, talking about different kinds of insects while Saskia marveled at the praying mantis on her palm. She put it back in the grass and then turned around.

“Mama!”

Caitlyn turned around and Vi held her breath. It was just a stupid haircut. Why was her heart beating out of her chest? 

Saskia ran up to her and reached up with her hand, so Vi kneeled down and smiled when she ran her fingers through the buzzed strands. “It’s so soft!”

Caitlyn approached them and then met Vi’s eyes. “You look very, very...” she swallowed and then glanced at their daughter, “nice.”

Saskia nodded several times, still awed by the pleasant texture. 

“Thanks,” Vi replied, exhaling shakily. Well that had gone well. She tried to read Caitlyn’s expression better and noticed her turning around quickly, pretending to fix her bracelet. 

Vi dreamt of her city in a different light. Long stretches of wildflowers along the canals. The fissures cleaned up. 

She dreamt she took her family down. That Saskia peered out of the bathysphere, a little cautious at first, but excited when she started… not remembering, but feeling familiarity. 

Saskia asked her a thousand questions, and then Caitlyn joined in. They came again and again, discovering new eateries, new drinks, attending the inauguration of a new park in Zaun, where Saskia ran with new friends and didn’t cough once, where she grinned at them so happily that Vi felt peace like nothing else. 

She took Caitlyn’s hand and entwined their fingers, finding Caitlyn already smiling at her. 

“I want to take you out tonight,”  Vi said.

“Tonight?” Caitlyn repeated. 

“I asked Powder to pick up Sask for the night. They’re gonna build a firefly from scratch or something like that. I figured… you and I could go somewhere nice. Unless Jayce-”

“No!” Caitlyn blurted out. “Jayce doesn’t need me. I’m free as a bird.”

“Then it’s settled.”

Vi dreamt that they were both nervous; both a little clunky with each other, as if they hadn’t been married for years. As if they hadn’t been attached to the hip since they were four. 

“I feel like I haven’t known myself for years,” Vi admitted in a corner of the restaurant they were trying. It was a quiet place, on the bridge between their cities. 

Caitlyn reached out for her hand, “That’s all right.”

“Is it? I have responsibilities. To Saskia, to you, to Jayce and the business my mom helped build. I can’t take time away from any of you—I won’t.” 

“Last month when we went to the fair, you were so tired you weren’t even with us. Not really. You haven’t been sleeping well, you haven’t been eating well… It’s not about giving us more time, Vi, it’s about giving yourself some grace. The chance to find what you want to build.”   

“I thought we were doing that together,” Vi replied, guilt-ridden.

“You’re more than a wife and a mother. More than the gauntlets and the problems you fix.”

“How do you know?” 

Caitlyn smiled. “Because I fell in love with your multitudes, and one of those was the teenager who sneaked me out of my mansion in the middle of the night and took me climbing the buildings of Piltover for a picnic date under the stars. You have always, always… followed your heart.”

Vi chuckled. “Feels like a lifetime ago.”

“Where does it take you now?” Caitlyn asked.

Vi looked down at their hands and let out a breath. “Takes me to the place that got my dad and his friends killed. Takes me to the place that gave my mom her rotten lung, that put my kid in a factory and almost killed her too. Why does that damn city have its claws so deep inside me?”

“Because despite it all, that’s where you and so many of the people you love come from.”

Vi thought back on their first kiss and looked up. “I have an idea. You trust me?”

“With my eyes closed.” 

She took her to the very building Caitlyn had mentioned, sneaking in the alley to kick the back door open. They went up the stairs and pushed the rooftop latch open, finding themselves on the deserted stage of their teenage years. 

An airship boomed in the sky, a trail of silver blue behind it. 

“I never get tired of it,” Caitlyn said, looking up at the streaks of light and the stars.

Vi walked up to her, behind her, and pressed a kiss against her bare neck. “I never get tired of you in this dress,” she murmured. 

Caitlyn kept her old promise, keeping herself from initiating, which made Vi ache. Enough. “Can I take you home soon?” Vi asked. 

It was a miracle they even made it back. 

Vi’s dream turned hazier. The edges blurred. She saw Caitlyn slip her shawl off and reveal nude shoulders. She dreamt that she stood behind her in their bedroom. Brushed her fingers down Caitlyn’s back and kissed her neck, following its slope when Caitlyn tilted her head the side. She was trembling; breathing fast. 

“I’m gonna touch you, baby,” Vi said as her hands went to cup her wife’s breasts.

Caitlyn’s head fell back against Vi’s shoulder. She reached up to cover Vi’s hands with her own, to encourage her fondling, how she squeezed her nipples. 

“Vi… I won’t be… lasting long.” 

“That’s all right with me. I’ll just get you going again.”

Caitlyn’s breasts swelled with every inhale. She seemed stunned, maybe worried she was imagining it, and Vi knew that was her mistake. 

“I want you, Cait. I want every perfect inch of you,” she said close to her ear. “I’ve missed tasting you. I’ve missed your hands on my ass, your nails dragging up my shoulders when I fuck you into the bed. I’ve missed how your back arches when I take you from behind. That perfect little whine when you come in my mouth.”

Caitlyn’s knees buckled. She looked dizzy. Speechless. “Vi-”

Vi turned her around, “I’ve been in a haze, but everything is clearing up now.” 

Their kiss was inevitable, with tongues meeting immediately. Hands grabbing, pushing off clothing, fast and desperate. 

They made love for hours; lost in each other through the night. Their hands got distracted in the shower again, with Vi pressing her wife against the wall, sinking down to her knees, Caitlyn’s knees buckling when her tongue pressed inside her. Rediscovering each other. Caitlyn cried in her arms and Vi found herself falling apart too, the release of it all feeling like years off her shoulders. 

Later, later, in the fogginess of it all, Vi dreamt that she opened her own shop; her own repairs, and soon she made new friends of her own. Found her footing. Her voice. And her family was by her side for every step, every setback, every moment of doubt. 

Vi saw fragments of lives she hadn’t lived, a jumble she couldn’t quite make out, but could feel deep in her gut. 

And then she woke up, feeling hot tears slide down her cheeks. There was no heartache; no pain. It was a healing feeling, like pulling two threads together to mend a hole. The scar remained, and she was forever changed, but it didn’t take anything more from her. 

“Vi?” Caitlyn asked, her voice groggy and uncertain. Her hand shot toward Vi, as if she’d suddenly panicked she wasn’t really there. 

Vi caressed her forearm. “Did you forget already? You’re not getting rid of me.”

Caitlyn shifted closer, resting her head in the crook of her neck, calming down her pounding heart. “You’ll just have to keep reminding me.” 

“Gladly.”

They were getting ready for an evening out at the bar. No distractions, no detours tonight. They’d take the bathysphere straight down. 

Vi looked at the portraits in the living room, the Kiramman legacy she'd learned so much about in the past years. It was a lot to measure up to. 

Caitlyn walked in fiddling with a silver earring. "Ready, darling?"

Vi's eyes swept down her frame and back up, meeting her eye with a smile. "Don't wear my clothes that much, hm?"

"It's only your jacket and you barely ever wear it anymore," Caitlyn countered. 

"Oh, I wonder why."

Caitlyn gave her a kiss, but before they left, Vi had something to get off her chest. “I want us to do it, Cait. Travel for a little bit.”

Caitlyn's mouth opened and closed. She tried to cautiously read Vi's expression. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I want to see what’s out there with you."

“All right, that's- we'll get right to planning,” Caitlyn replied, failing to dampen her delight. “We’ll be back, Vi. I know our future is here. I just thought you’d want to see we had many doors open, because… I…”

“Because I didn’t have any choices growing up, and you’re always looking out for me.” Vi hesitated: “There's a catch though. When we come back, I’d like us to…  live somewhere that’s ours. I love you, and I love where you come from, because it’s made you who you are, but this house… isn’t me. And I’m not sure it’s you either.”

Caitlyn looked around the Kiramman estate and let out a breathy chuckle. “We never did really make it our own, did we?”

Vi shrugged. “We’ve been busy. Besides, your idea of decorating is a bunch of red thread and mugshots in our living room.”

“Is that coming from you, with the boxing bag in our library?”

“Hey, what? Books and stress relief, that’s the best of both worlds.”

Caitlyn leaned into her arms and sighed. “I think you may be right. We’ve been so concerned with bettering this world we’ve forgotten to carve out a piece that fits us.” 

“Your dad’ll be happy he can move back in,” Vi said.

“I’m not sure; he’s been quite content at the lodge with the dogs. He started painting again, not to mention hunting.” Caitlyn looked around at the vastness of the room. “I think perhaps… these walls should welcome a new family.” 

There was sadness in Caitlyn’s eyes, but bittersweet. Memories dashing through her mind, and something else too. She pulled back, fixing Vi’s collar quietly for a minute. 

“I worried-” she started, and then let out a deep breath. “I worried maybe you would’ve liked to stay… there. If it had been easier. If you could’ve been with your sister or your parents. I would’ve understood it, Vi, but I still… hoped you would choose us,” she finished with a whisper.

“Cait.” Vi cupped her cheek. “Not once did I ever hope to stay. This world, everything I’ve been through, is mine to deal with. My pain, my joy and my love. The whole of that brought us together. There’s no world out there better than this one for me, right with you in it.”

“You know, for someone who says she prefers ‘show’ over ‘tell,’ you’re awfully good at the telling part.”

Vi smirked. “You asking me to show? Didn’t get your fill last night?”

Caitlyn exhaled a little laugh, not quite blushing but close. “Oh I got what I was looking for and more.”

Vi nuzzled her neck. “Hey… I’m sorry I missed the fundraiser. I really wanted to dance with you.” 

Caitlyn sunk into their embrace. “We’ll have plenty more of those. You said the Tank Labs will be singing tonight; they’re good dancing music, aren’t they?”

Vi chuckled. “Yeah, Cait, they’re decent.”

"Off we go then," Caitlyn said.

“How do I look?” Vi asked. 

Caitlyn kissed her jaw, pulled back with a smile and then said with a loving rasp, “Like my entire world.”