Chapter Text
Red hues, then orange, yellow. Remnants of the darkness of night still remain, but with each moment of the rising sun, they slowly dissipate. Sunlight begins to filter through the trees, reaching a small balcony. A small bath of morning warmth lays on the porch, mixing with the rising steam from a cup of tea.
Caitlyn exhales the morning air, her breath barely visible in the air. The days are growing shorter and colder, the leaves turning the colors of the sunrise and saying their goodbyes onto the frozen ground. She sighs, taking a small sip of her tea. Heat melts the coldness in her throat, a small smile tugging at her lips. She sits in the rising light, a small blanket tucked around her legs.
The door to the back porch opens softly. From inside the house appears Vi, holding her own cup of coffee and holding a separate blanket. Caitlyn smiles softly at her, nodding in acknowledgment of her arrival. Slowly, Vi leans down to her, giving a few quick kisses to both her lips and her cheeks. Caitlyn reciprocates both.
“Good morning cupcake. What are you up to out here? You don’t really come out here often,” Vi asks softly, sitting next to Caitlyn on the deck bench. She takes a slow sip of her coffee, staring tentatively at Vi.
Caitlyn sighs. “I got a text this morning.”
“From who?”
Slowly taking out her phone, Caitlyn shows the screen to her partner. Vi nods, pressing her lips together. Her mother’s name is written on the screen.
“When was the last time she talked to you?”
“Since our fight,” she says, a twinge of sadness in her voice. “So… two months?”
Vi nods slowly, her hand moving to rest on Caitlyn’s arm. “Are you going to respond?”
That’s the real question for Caitlyn. Which she did not know the answer to. The last she had talked to her mother she had yelled at her about how she had been abandoning the family and then proceeded to leave back to Piltover and not contact her. She had screamed that Caitlyn would be disowned from her family, cut off from any financial help, and would be left behind. Caitlyn had been terrified at that. She had been so fearful that her family would never speak to her again after their fight.
It had been a full week before she had any contact from her family at all, and of course, it didn’t come from her mother. Her father had instead called her, his calm and unwavering voice reassuring Caitlyn that she was not being cut off from the family, that they still wanted her around. As time went on of course Caitlyn realized that her father wanted her around still. He had always been complacent with Cassandra’s micro-managing of their daughter’s life, saying that she knew what was best as her mother. When he called Caitlyn though he sounded tired, defeated.
Her parents had been fighting over the subject, with Cassandra unmoving and Tobias, her father, pleading that if they did this, they would lose Caitlyn forever. They wouldn’t get her back. Caitlyn assumes that her mother always thought Caitlyn would break down after a few weeks, maybe after a month of living away from home, and come crawling back into her arms. That Cassandra could go back to Piltover and if she threatened Caitlyn enough and let her stew in the decision she would back down and go back to their old life. Which didn’t happen. Maybe, yes, Caitlyn had debated it a couple of times, but she wanted to stay firm in her decision.
Tobias always kept in contact though. Cassandra had crossed a line for him, and he didn’t want to lose his daughter. Her parents were in a tight spot. She knew they would recover as time went on, but she could hear the mental strain in her father’s voice every time they talked to each other. It was saddening each time, but she had to stay firm in her decision and stay out of it. Her father called her every week now, catching up and trying to make plans for him to visit soon. Her mother’s text was no doubt going to lead to her asking Caitlyn if she could join.
Caitlyn’s opinion of her mother was more intact but still raw and fragile from their fight. Her mother had more straws than most others but for Caitlyn, the fight was the last of those straws. In the aftermath she had been angry at first, ranting about her life and how much she had been oppressed as a child as Vi played video games and listened to what she had to say. She always listened to her long rants, even if she was doing something else. Attentive and thoughtful.
“It’s just unfair Vi! What did I do as a literal child to deserve getting yelled at for trying to make friends?” Caitlyn would say, a frustrated tone laced through her words.
Vi would simply stare back at her and always answer the way that Caitlyn needed to hear, but what she also thought was true.
“Nothing. You didn’t deserve that.”
Caitlyn put her head in her hands, shaking back and forth. “I know. I know. Yet why do I feel like I did? Why do I have this nagging voice in my head, asking me ‘are you sure’? I feel like I’m sure and yet I’m still stuck.”
Vi simply smiled, putting down the controller from the game she was playing. “You need time. Lots of time that you have all the world for. You’re not going to be cured overnight, but I’ll be with you every step of the way to make sure you get there, okay?”
Caitlyn would nod, trying to hold back tears that usually broke. “Yeah, okay.”
“You’re not in her house anymore. You have people who love you. It’ll take time, yes, but you will get there.”
They usually then would go back to their own tasks, Caitlyn more comforted and feel more sure of herself. Little by little, she broke the shell surrounding her. What helped most was moving.
Vi and Caitlyn had moved in together shortly after the season ended. They ended their final day at the waterpark together, standing on the edge of the wave pool as everyone lined up and took their last plunge into the warm water below. They left with almost an empty feeling in their chest. With the thing binding them closer being gone for the year, the relationship felt newer, rawer. They slowed down, each kiss became more awkward, and sleeping with each other came to almost a full stop. It was like they had awoken from a fever dream and had now realized the weight of what their relationship was, and what it meant to both of them.
They still talked and spent time with each other easily. It was free-flowing when their foundation was already built upon a friendship. They could exist in simple spaces with each other and feel comfortable. However, it was like falling in love all over again. The fearful feeling never truly left either of them until several weeks had passed. At this point on the porch, they’ve been through the processes of a relationship many times over, small kisses being a regular occurrence for the both of them.
They decided early on that they would move in together at Vi’s house, to get Caitlyn fully separated from her family as a whole. Create a healthy boundary between her and her aunt. Caitlyn still talked to her aunt on the regular, going for tea every Wednesday. For the first month, she was still pressured lightly by her aunt to take over the park, but Caitlyn was firm each time in her decision, turning her down each time. Her aunt though never dwelled on it, and each time it would pass by in the conversation like a fleeting train. As much as Caitlyn adored her aunt, it still felt like a connection to her mother that she didn’t want to keep within arm’s length.
Caitlyn sighs deeply, staring at the text on her phone.
Mother: Can we talk?
“I don’t know if I want to respond,” Caitlyn says softly, her eyes drooping the more she stared at the text. “She just… upset so much of my life that I don’t even know if it’s worth it.”
Vi nods next to her, looking out to the rising sun in front of them.
“I don’t like your mom, and I don’t think that’ll ever change after I saw the fight. That being said, the fact that she’s even talking to you means something. If she makes an effort to change and actually does it, then maybe?” Vi sounds unsure about her words, but firm in the fact of placing boundaries.
After the fight was simply put: a mess. Vi was pissed and trying to take out her anger on anything else around her. Caitlyn was crying hysterically, the words coming from her mouth unintelligible. By the time they made it to Vi’s house, it was a hurricane coming to a peaceful beach. Jinx and Lux separated the two of them, Jinx taking Vi outside to take out her anger in a healthy way by chopping wood. Lux had taken Caitlyn into her own room. It was immaculately cleaned, white and yellow being the main two colors. It was a positive environment at least.
That was when Lux had really started to bond with Caitlyn for the first time. She brewed them both tea, and between fogged mugs and plushy blankets surrounding them, they exchanged stories of their childhood with each other. Lux was from a similar family situation, ostracized for years from a family that was very controlling. Caitlyn had been surprised to discover this at first and then noticed all of the small things about Lux that she had never noticed that fit. The jewelry for one. For someone who worked as a barista, she had lots of jewelry that was over the range of anyone in the house. Heirlooms that she took with her when she left.
By the time Caitlyn calmed down they decided to check on Jinx and Vi, who was still in the yard. Judging by the crack of logs being split still ringing in the air, Vi hadn't finished airing out her anger. It made Caitlyn feel weirdly loved, that Vi was angry for her in such a way. Cared about her so much to feel so moved by the blatant attack from her mother. Lux and Caitlyn had decided to sit on the porch and watch them as Jinx hyped Vi up, and she swung the ax down.
“Do you love her?” Lux asked suddenly.
“Yes,” Caitlyn had responded simply. The answer was automatic.
Lux simply nodded, her eyes intently trained on the pair. “How did you know?”
Caitlyn followed her line of sight, which wasn’t trained on both of them, but instead, the one wavering their arms wildly, braids swinging in the light wind. She smiled softly.
“It was when I knew she wasn’t going anywhere. I knew she was going to treat me differently from my family and treat me better at that. I know both of us are still working on our own problems, but when Vi decided to stay despite those problems, that’s when I just… knew,” Caitlyn finally said. Lux nodded again, and Caitlyn continues. “Anyone in mind when you ask that?”
Lux simply shook her head, but the blush was evident. “You’ll know when I do.”
With each passing week, Caitlyn and Lux grew closer, exchanging advice and talking about their other housemates. With the season ending, Lux even helped Caitlyn get a new job doing something away from her family. She decided to try and work with Lux, at the small coffee shop where Caitlyn could get a bearing of her gears and then decided from there what she wanted to do and where she wanted to go. It was nice to truly have a friend who understood the issues with her family in a more than familiar way.
Both Lux and Jinx helped Caitlyn move into the house, which wasn’t hard as the only belonging Caitlyn had fit into the two suitcases she already packed for the summer. They still made a day out of it, welcoming her into their family. They ordered pizza and played games until the sun went down, and it was then that Caitlyn truly felt like she had a place to call her home now. Not just her house, a place where she slept and where her parents lived. A home with a family that appreciated her. A family she chose, not one that was forced.
Her parents though still occupied her mind more than she’d like to admit. In reality, Caitlyn says ‘her parents’ but at this point, she really means her mother. Her father has started to make his amends and still contacts Caitlyn. He’s apologized and has tried to make up for his own wrongdoings in Caitlyn’s childhood. Her mother was vehemently no contact for the first month of being away. Then Caitlyn and her father stopped talking about her, so she never knew her opinion on the matter. It seems now that she wants to break the seal between her and Caitlyn.
Carefully Caitlyn types out a response.
Caitlyn: About what?
Mother: I want to apologize.
The words and letters don’t register in Caitlyn’s mind the first time she reads them. Nor the second or third. By the fourth time they finally settle, and Caitlyn can only stare at the text beneath her. Vi peers over her shoulder, slowly reading the text for herself. Vi huffs a little bit of air, turning away to peer over the patio.
“Do you think I should respond?” Caitlyn asks carefully.
“If she actually does apologize I’ll be surprised. Glad but surprised,” Vi responds, not answering Caitlyn's question on purpose. Caitlyn huffs in response, taking her time to decide the words she wants to say next.
Caitlyn: You can say what you need to say here.
Mother: Alright then.
Mother: I am sorry for our fight. I am being childish for not talking to you and your father has made me see the error of my ways. I want to apologize for the hurt that I have caused to both you and Vi.
Caitlyn reads each word with emotion swelling in her chest. Vi looks at her and smiles softly, wrapping her arm around Caitlyn’s shoulders. Wiping away growing tears, Caitlyn replies.
Caitlyn: It will take a while for me to be able to forgive you. But if you’re willing to apologize, it’s a start. If you want to truly repair our relationship, there is much work to be done.
Mother: I understand. I realize that I was wrong and that my family means more than business, even if I muddled the two together. I don’t want to lose my only daughter because I was selfish.
Mother: image.png
Mother: I love you Caitlyn.
Caitlyn hesitantly watches as the final two texts pop up in front of her. The image makes her stop. It’s not a digital copy, but a physical copy of an old photo that Caitlyn had forgotten about. When she was eight, her mom took her on a business trip to a new city. Her mother had the days in the city to explore and wanted to bring Caitlyn along with her so that they could go sightseeing together. One of the places Caitlyn had insisted upon going was the aquarium. She loved the sea life, all of the brightly colored anemones and fish that swam right past her face. In the aquarium, they had a photo booth, and Caitlyn begged her mother to get a photo together.
Caitlyn’s smile was wide, the sides of her eyes crinkling so much she was squinting in the photo. It was the last time that Caitlyn can truly remember getting along with her mother. Her mother had on a polite smile, but you could see in her eyes that she was enjoying herself. A mother and her daughter smiling happily. Caitlyn stares at the photo until wetness obscures her eyes. A small tear hits the glass of her phone as she reads the final text from her mother.
I love you Caitlyn.
So, with the sound of swaying flowers in the wind cutting the quiet morning, Caitlyn looks up into the rising sunlight.