Chapter Text
Vi knew that she was more than likely dragging dirt and grime through the pristine corridors as she walked through them, but the urgency in her step didn’t leave time for any remorse over cleanliness. The only reason she wasn’t in a dead sprint was due to the certainty that security would stop her and ultimately make her lose even more time.
But she came close to running when the door to Caitlyn’s room came into view. Jayce was standing just outside, leaning against the wall next to it, an anxious bounce of his leg and a far-away expression on his face that didn’t change the moment he noticed Vi.
It made dread grip at Vi’s insides.
“How-... How is-”
She gulped down a mouthful of oxygen when she realized she wasn’t quite breathing. Jayce seemed to snap out of his numb state ever so slightly as he finally took in her disheveled state.
“Where have you been?”
“How’s Cait?”
Jayce frowned, but ultimately dropped it. “The same. But they’re not watching her at all times anymore.”
Vi nodded, only half registering the information. Good. That was good.
“Her parents?”
His frown turned just a little suspicious at the urgency of her questions. “With her.”
Hands busying themselves with the bandages around them, in dire need of a distraction, Vi went over her half-baked plan. It was simple and frankly not the most thought out, with no idea of what she would do if anyone actually took a second glance and questioned her. But strategy and complex plans were Caitlyn’s speciality, and right now she was unconscious beyond that door.
Vi sucked in a breath, not nervous but still needing to ground herself somehow before she spoke.
"I uh- I need five minutes alone with her."
Jayce’s suspicious narrowed eyes didn’t stray from her for one second. They only lowered ever so slowly, now actually registering all the grime and oil stains and mud that littered her clothes. The way Vi was holding her hand protectively over where a blessed little inner pocket of her jacket was.
Dumbass as he was sometimes, Jayce was not downright stupid.
"If you were anyone else, I'd personally pick you up and throw you out those front doors," he said, slow and quiet as he seemed to put a few pieces of the puzzle together.
It made Vi bristle, tense up and get ready for whatever fight was coming. She and Jayce were friends, but that didn’t stop them from butting heads over Caitlyn from time to time.
But instead of whatever pushback she expected, Jayce only let out a long sigh, passing his hands through his already messy hair. "If you were anyone else," he muttered again.
Without another word at the brawler and her raised hackles, Jayce jerked his head towards the door before opening it. Vi followed him inside, not needing any more invitation than that as she defused fully. The scene inside wasn't much different from before, with Caitlyn's parents watching over her unconscious form while muttering something akin to a conversation. Neither of them looked much better, dark circles under their eyes and slouched positions so unlike the proud and imposing Kirammans she had come to know.
Jayce cleared his throat, which only got the attention of Tobias.
"A nurse said they could fix some food for you downstairs, if you'd like," Jayce said, a strain in his voice from the thinly veiled excuse.
Tobias looked him up and down before looking over at Vi, nervously shifting on her feet and finding the cabinet to the side particularly interesting. With a heavy sigh, he put his hands on his wife's shoulders, rubbing gentle circles.
"We should go eat something darling." His words were nothing more than a whisper, but they were seemingly enough to make Cassandra’s face twist in a stubborn grimace. It was an expression so similar to Caitlyn that Vi didn’t even allow herself to look at it for more than a fraction of a second. "It'll only be a few minutes," he added quickly.
It took some convincing. A few excruciating minutes of Vi feeling as if ants were crawling under her skin. Inaction wasn't something she'd ever been good at, Caitlyn being the only person that's ever been somewhat capable of making her slow down. But the moment Cassandra raised from her chair, gently guided to the door by her husband, a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding finally made its way out of her lungs.
For a few seconds after the door shut and she was alone with Caitlyn, Vi froze. Part of her was still shaking down the shock of the entire ordeal, in disbelief and thinking that at any moment she would wake up from a wretched nightmare. Surely Caitlyn couldn’t die from a bullet of all things.
Another part of her screamed to move move move . She listened to that one.
With shaking fingers, Vi brushed a few strands of sweat soaked blue hair away from where they had stuck to her partner’s forehead. She knew how much Caitlyn hated to have her hair all up in her face when working and oh how she missed hearing a grumble as she put her hair up in a ponytail.
"Please work. Please please please…"
Vi's muttered prayer was lost to the cruel beeping sound of machines, unheard by anyone besides herself and her unconscious lover. She lifted Caitlyn’s head up, just enough to be sure she wouldn't choke, and used a few extra pillows to support that position. With a final deep breath that came out as another please , Vi moved the oxygen mask away from Caitlyn's face.
She knew how awful it felt to be rudely pulled from almost death by shimmer. How for a few agonizingly long seconds it lit every single nerve on fire as if short-circuited, just before all the pain subsided into some form of blissful numbness for a short while. With a guilty grimace on her face, Vi tried to push that knowledge aside as she gently pried Caitlyn’s mouth open. There was no resistance in her jaw, going frighteningly slack in Vi’s hand.
The process of actually pouring the potion into her mouth was slow and agonizing and Vi was half scared that at any moment a doctor would come in and half scared that Caitlyn would choke. But small gulp after small gulp, the vial was eventually empty, only shining little traces of purple remaining on the glass.
And by the end of it, Caitlyn had a pained grimace on her face while a quiet whimper accompanied the last bit of potion sliding down her throat. Vi almost felt horrible for the relief that came with that one little sound, but anything was better than the dead silence.
She did feel horrible when Caitlyn's eyes snapped open with a pained gasp as she jerked up.
Right. That.
Vi did her best to keep Caitlyn still, terrified that the wound in her abdomen would be ripped open with the sudden movements. She pulled Caitlyn against her body, the short cries of pain getting muffled against the dirty red jacket.
"Hey hey hey," Vi cooed, one hand coming to support the back of her partner’s head. "You're okay, it's okay."
Caitlyn’s shoulders trembled with the aftershocks of shimmer, but the sound of Vi’s voice made her jerk back in one graceless motion. She looked up, the remnants of fuchsia gradually disappearing from her irises.
"Vi?"
Her voice was hoarse and scratchy, barely recognizable but it still flooded Vi with a sense of relief. Caitlyn was alive and no she wasn't okay but she wasn’t dying anymore. The bullet hole in her abdomen wasn't oozing blood through bandages and sure the machines were screaming at them with incessant beeping but Caitlyn was alive.
And Caitlyn’s eyes filled with tears as she raised trembling hands to clumsily cup Vi’s face. A sob shook her body. The kind of sob that claws its way up from the heart of someone just coming to the realization that they almost died.
There had to be some sort of poetic metaphor that linked the azure waves of the ocean with the way Caitlyn’s blue eyes were shining under a small flood of tears. But Vi didn’t feel particularly poetic at the moment. She leaned down to plant a kiss on Caitlyn's forehead. The skin under her lips was warm and a little tacky but she couldn’t bring herself to care, not while Caitlyn sunk into her arms with a new wave of sobs. She left a small trail of kisses to one temple while she felt her own eyes start to sting with tears.
"You'll be okay cupcake," she whispered and felt Caitlyn bury her face a little more into the crook of her neck.
It would've been a perfectly sweet moment were it not for the group of doctors and nurses hastily coming through the door, faces contorted in alarm and worry most likely caused by the constant loud beeping.
Vi wanted to be pissed at them, but she couldn’t really be in the end. She simply slipped the now empty vial back into her pocket and gently pried herself away from Caitlyn as they started to fuss around her. She didn’t go far though, her partner’s death grip on her hand not letting her stray for more than a few paces.
—-
"Do you see the irony in all of this?"
Vi quirked up an eyebrow as she watched Caitlyn huff. She was pouting, the usual expression she took when thinking really hard on something, but she was still not quite focused all the way.
Vi hummed into her cup of tea, taking slow sips of the hot liquid as she kept her partner company.
"I almost died from a bullet. A bullet , Vi."
She turned, eyes wide yet still bleary from sleep, and Vi chuckled.
"How much medication are you on?" she asked more for effect than for an answer. She knew the answer.
Caitlyn looked at the IV in her arm, then slowly traced the tube up to the bag hanging somewhere close to her bed. She mouthed something, almost as if counting. "A lot," is what she ended up replying with, before looking back at Vi. "Are you saying my usual, non -medicated humor is any better?"
Vi shook her head, but a grin still pulled at her lips. "Absolutely not. You have a shit sense of humor, cupcake."
"You love it though."
"I do."
Caitlyn giggled at that, honest to god giggled , and Vi’s answers of putting her cup down and leaning down to kiss the top of her head was automatic. And so was Caitlyn’s reaction to tilt her head back and allow Vi to kiss her properly.
They sat there, lips pressed together in a tender kiss, relishing in the kind of intimacy that both had feared they'd lose forever only a few hours ago. Vi's hand came to gently cup Caitlyn's cheek, her thumb trailing slowly over a cheekbone. Until she felt Caitlyn grimace slightly into their kiss.
"Ugh gods, I haven't had the chance to brush my teeth in what? Two full days? "
Truly the most tragic of fates to befell the Sheriff.
Vi simply laughed at that, brushing off the mild embarrassment.
"And I'm in dire need of a shower," Caitlyn grumbled on, glaring a bit at the door of the bathroom attached to her room.
"You're not going anywhere yet," Vi warned, unsure if a Caitlyn high on painkillers would put not reopening her wound above showering on her priorities list. "You'll just have to stink for a while," she added, laughing at her partner’s exasperated groan.
Caitlyn couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle of her own at her partner’s teasing. It was short lived however, the chuckle turning into a grimace when she carefully ran a hand through her dirty hair. She looked around the room, her mind still catching up with her state of wakefulness as she tried to focus on her surroundings.
"Vi," she called, finally finding what she was looking for. "Could you get me a hair tie? It should be in the same bag as the first aid kit."
Vi followed her gaze to the heap of leather and belts that made up her gear, haphazardly taken off and thrown into a chair in the far corner of her room. She didn’t remember who exactly it was that moved it from the old room to the new one. Probably Jayce.
With a hum, Vi stood up and made her way to the abandoned gear, rummaging through a few bags filled with bullets and nets until she found the right one. It contained mostly bandaids and other medical supplies that could easily be stuffed inside the small space, but among those were also a few hair ties.
"Can you sit up?" she asked Caitlyn once she was back by her side.
Her partner grimaced but tried to get her elbows under her, looking for the least painful way to get into a sitting position. The jolts of pain from her abdomen made her wince and for once she didn’t even think to refuse when Vi wrapped an arm around her to keep her steady. With a few pillows behind her, Vi started to comb through her hair with defty fingers.
"Vi, my hair is so gross," she complained weakly.
But Vi didn’t grace that with an answer, simply continuing on her newfound quest of getting a few tangles out of her partner’s hair. She was right, sure, but Vi couldn’t care less about greasy hair when she was trying to get Caitlyn just a bit more comfortable.
She leaned down to leave a kiss on Caitlyn's shoulder, skin left exposed from where the hospital gown slipped crookedly on her thin frame. Caitlyn sighed and leaned into the kiss and Vi couldn’t help but smile against warm skin.
"A braid'll be more comfortable than a ponytail," she said simply before going back to her task.
Skillfully, she parted Caitlyn’s hair into three equal sections and started braiding it. It was muscle memory, having learned to braid so many years ago from her mother and then keeping up the habit for Powder. She never needed it for herself, but it always turned out useful one way or another.
When she tied off the end, Caitlyn’s hand came up instinctively to feel it. She appreciated the way Vi started off the braid higher, keeping the hair away from her nape and making her stuck-in-bed state a little more bearable.
"Thank you," she said, taking one of Vi's hands in her own and leaving a featherlight kiss over bandaged knuckles.
It was easy to fall back into their comfortable familiarity afterwards, even in the downright unpleasant environment. The Kirammans were back by Caitlyn’s side, and so was Jayce, before she managed to convince everyone that she felt well enough to not need around the clock supervision. They all had duties that they reluctantly went back to while Caitlyn recovered.
"You do know you're technically acting Sheriff right now, don't you," Caitlyn had asked the second or third day of Vi refusing to leave her side. It was asked more in jest than anything, an amused little smirk pulling at chapped lips while her partner shuddered with what was sure to be visions of all the paperwork in the Sheriff's office.
"I'm sure Willes can handle it for a bit," was Vi’s reply, banishing all thoughts of reports.
Caitlyn simply laughed at that, before wincing from the pain that the sudden movement caused.
The doctors' visits were regularly scheduled too, thrice a day to check on her condition. "A miraculous recovery" one of them had said while changing the bandages on the still not properly closed wound. Caitlyn chuckled nervously and called it luck. They both knew better, especially with the empty vial of shimmer yet to be discarded from Vi’s pocket.
Not miraculous enough apparently, for the bullet wound was far from healed. The potion seemed to have only given her body a boost in the right direction. A jolt that pushed her away from that precarious position on the very precipice of death.
But it wasn't healed . Not really.
It took another atrociously long week for the doctors to declare Caitlyn well enough to be allowed to go home.
"Would've taken less if I weren't a Kiramman," Caitlyn had mumbled bitterly after the doctor left.
And Vi couldn't argue otherwise but she also couldn't for the life of her find the strength to be even remotely mad at the special treatment. The memory of her lover's pale face under an oxygen mask that barely did its job of keeping her alive was too fresh in her mind.
—-
"He didn't make it, did he?"
Caitlyn's voice was a quiet murmur as she watched the sun slowly start to set outside her room's window. It was on a high enough floor that she could look over a good portion of Piltover, the sun's warm hues dancing on her features and clashing with her eyes.
Vi raised her head from the book she had been engrossed in for the past few hours while she let her partner nap, some novel Tobias had brought her to battle the boredom. Her first answer was a confused huh before she connected the dots.
"Bullet straight through the head," she somewhat crudely quoted a doctor she had heard during their stay at the clinic. "He died on the spot."
Caitlyn grimaced, eyes still fixated on the cityscape and all its different shapes. Saying that she felt particularly sorrowful about Mervin’s death would be a lie, but the Sheriff mourned the fact that he took whatever information he had to the grave.
"So now what?" Caitlyn eventually asked, because she was tired and maybe the painkillers she was on put a slight damper on her investigative mind.
"Now," Vi started without a sliver of hesitation," you rest and heal." Before Caitlyn had a chance to protest she put a finger up, somewhat reminiscent of how she would try to get her siblings to shut up when young. "And then we find the fucker that shot my girlfriend."
Caitlyn huffed but still smiled while leaning further into her small mountain of pillows. There were so many questions swirling in her brain, connections she tried to put together with a metaphorical red string while she recited the little information they had. Had Mervin hired the person that shot her? Were they the one who killed Tamara?
She groaned, bringing her hands up to rub at her temples when she felt a small wave of dizziness morph into the beginning of a headache. Vi was quick to cover her hands with her own, gently running her fingers over the tense muscle of her furrowed brows.
"Hey, we'll figure it out," she reassured softly as she felt the tension under the pads of her fingers dissipate slowly. All that was left behind that frown was Caitlyn’s defeated expression. "We'll figure it out together. Like we always do."
Caitlyn hesitated for only a moment before nodding her acceptance. Her hands shifted to Vi’s face, pulling her down to close the already small distance between them and capture her lips in a kiss.
"Yeah. Yeah, together," she eventually breathed out, words coming out mumbled thanks to the proximity of their mouths.
Vi responded with a smile before diving back down for another kiss. It was far quicker and left Caitlyn pouting when she rose back to her feet.
"I'll go see if they have your paperwork ready so we can get out of here," Vi announced, chuckling at her partner’s downright offended expression.
Caitlyn watched Vi’s back as she shut the door behind her. Her gaze remained fixated on that spot for a while, before it dragged slowly back to the window and the sun that was lower on the horizon now, soft hues of purples containing stars visible in the sky.
She really needed a new conspiracy board.