Chapter Text
When Caitlyn sat in darkest, most honest parts of herself, she still wanted Jinx to be dead. Death did not erase complex feelings — she knew that intimately now — but emotions conflicted less when all interactions happened in the past. It took her months to accept that for her mother, to embrace that co-existence of deep primal love, frustration, anger, and simple fondness. She could smile at the memory of their old arguments now, and when she looked at Mother's portrait in the office, she saw a woman as human as she was, and she loved her for it.
Vi had no pictures of Jinx to look at fondly, but her own conflicting emotions played all over her beautiful face whenever she stared into space, and she was kind enough not to hide them from Caitlyn.
It would be easier if they had a corpse to bury, or in Jinx's case, to sink into the river. That's what Sevika claimed Jinx would have wanted, and Vi had no objections, though Caitlyn found it a little out of character. Caitlyn would have arranged an explosively colorful cremation, a somber procession, or any other ceremony Vi asked for, but Vi had just shaken her head when she asked.
"Nobody in our family's ever gotten a funeral," she'd said, and immediately changed the subject.
That was last night.
This morning, they'd had breakfast at the Academy with Ekko and Jayce, who expressed cautious optimism about fixing the z-drive, and Vi's eyes had lit up for the first time in weeks even as Ekko stressed the limits of the technology. Caitlyn had admittedly zoned out for most of the conversation, more out of self-preservation than anything else. Time travel meant endless possibilities, most of which broke her heart if she lingered on them to long.
"Hey," Ekko said at one point, breaking whatever daydream Caitlyn had drifted into as she spun the z-drive's handle around her finger, "maybe we can time this right, and you'll never have to lose your eye."
"No," she said, so strongly both he and Vi startled. "If you go back, don't you dare interfere in that part of it. Everything about my fight with Ambessa happened as it needed to. Save Jinx but let me keep my scars, please."
Gods, if an eye was all she had to sacrifice for all the mistakes she'd made, she considered herself inappropriately lucky.
Two hours later, Caitlyn stood at the junction of the hexgate's cooling ducts, breath visible in the light of her team's pocket torches, which also illuminated a pair of cartoon bunny ears drawn in shimmer-tinged blood on the shaft wall. Her team, however, stared much more intently at the gigantic silver-gray corpse taking up most of the passageway.
"Damn," muttered Lieutenant Otis. "That was Vander?"
"In a way," Caitlyn said, though the broken form bore little resemblance to the creature who'd embraced Vi and Jinx as any father would.
"That's just not right," Otis said, in the understatement of the year.
She hummed in agreement, still focused on the bit of graffiti that told an even bigger story. Moving her head in a newly familiar way to figure out the distance of the passageway's next turn, she told everyone, "Make sure he's fully dead, but treat him as human. Move him respectfully to the city morgue."
Most of the team answered with the usual "yes sir," but Otis simply stepped closer to her. One of the Zaunites who'd donned the uniform to fight Noxus and found it suited him, Otis had known Vi as a child, so must have known Vander before any of this transformation took place. "Tell you what, Commander," he said softly. "Once we're done here, I help you go after the bastard that did this. What do you say? You know Vi'll help out."
She had rolled the idea around in her own head plenty by now, for Reveck's role in shimmer production if nothing else, but another manhunt, even a deserved one held precious little appeal these days, especially if it meant sending Vi back out. For fuck's sake, Vi was just starting to learn how to relax.
"I'll consider it," she said. "Help them transport the body, would you? I'm going exploring."
Caitlyn would have helped them move the body. She wanted to help, to put her own body to more use that she had for two weeks now. Unfortunately, the whole team had already joined forces with her father to ensure she did nothing to pull the internal stitches in her lower abdomen, the other stubborn reminder of her fight with Ambessa. So instead, she headed down the ventilation shaft, torch in one hand, camera in the other, looking for Jinx one last time.
***
Vi fetched her tea while Cassandra picked through the newspaper that Vi's food had leaked on. Keeping up with current events was, after all, a significant part of her job regardless of timeline. The sentences she read here, though, were nearly as nonsensical as Jayce's time travel lectures. There were new councilors named in the articles, naturally, but nothing about where they were from or how they'd achieved their posts. Caitlyn, it seemed, had not replaced her, as she'd sworn she wouldn't, but then, she was awfully young for that kind of responsibility.
What she did glean from the newspaper was a better sense of the damage Piltover suffered in her absence. Every second article seemed to cover or at least mention the state of repairs around the city, including the council hall, hexgates, public squares, and private businesses. A small article on page 4, though, detailed the various initiatives aimed at Zaun: three new medical centers, low-interest business loans for Zaunites, and significant damages paid to victims of "the war." No responsible names were attached to the projects, which piqued Cassandra's interest. Councilors never undertook such massive endeavors without plastering their names all over them. Then she read that, as part of the overall betterment of the Undercity, Stillwater Hold would be gradually closed over the next few months, releasing all prisoners into transitional programs or full freedom.
Well, no wonder no one wanted their name associated with that. She had to wonder about the reasons.
"Anything interesting?" Vi asked, setting a saucer beside Cassandra with a steaming mug of tea, two sugar lumps, and a bent metal spoon.
"There's always something interesting," Cassandra said, "but I'm afraid I'm missing too much of the context for full appreciation. And thank you."
"I looked for some earl grey, but this was all they had. They barely even had cups that weren't growing fur on the inside."
"How did you know I liked earl grey?"
Vi smiled and hopped up on the table where she'd been before. "Cait told me. She said you always drink it with two sugars and sometimes you get distracted so you just keep stirring the same cup until it's too cold to drink. She swears you just needed… I mean, need something to do with your hands while you talk."
Oh, the horrors of being known by one's own child, all the worse for the past tense. To think that Caitlyn had been paying attention all those years.
"You all have been talking about me, haven't you?"
"Yeah," Vi said, and she had such fondness in her voice now. "Cait's lucky she got to spend so much time with you before you died… and now, too, obviously, once she gets here."
A flash of worry cut across Vi's face, perhaps worrying how she'd "soften the blow" of Cassandra's presence since Cassandra herself was apparently not up to that task herself. Cassandra left her to that and sipped the tea. It was serviceable, student-grade swill that sent her mind on a journey back to long nights with the Academy debate team and afternoon "study sessions" with Tobias that usually ended with their clothes on the floor.
She leaned back in the chair, chest tight again. On that dusty agenda, she'd written "ANNIVERSARY" in thick red ink two days into what should have been her future. The past two years she'd forgotten, and come home late to flowers and a long-suffering husband, but this year she swore she wouldn't. Twenty-five years of marriage merited a celebration to remember, but sitting here now, the number of years didn't matter. She just wanted her husband. At every point in her adult life that she'd questioned herself this deeply, he'd always been there, a listening ear, a shoulder to bury her face in, beautiful brown eyes to lose herself in until she could find herself again.
"If anything happens to me," she'd told him however many times, "you have to stay strong for Caitlyn."
And now no one seemed able to find him. Not only that, no one seemed surprised that they weren't able to find him.
Over the next hour, she re-read the newspaper and watched Vi alternate between sitting on the table, scowling out the window, and picking at the bits of greasy fish in her food container. Every ten minutes or so, Jayce came to ask questions she could not answer, or for which her answers did not satisfy him.
"What were you thinking of in the exact moment you travelled here?"
"That I'm getting too old for nighttime council sessions, but not old enough to complain about them."
He smiled sadly, perhaps remembering that session, the one she'd died in. "Did you see anything before arriving in our time?"
"No."
"Not even a quick flash? Strange colors?"
"No."
Jayce sighed, then begged her forgiveness to measure various metrics - height and weight, heart rate, lung capacity, fingernail strength, pupil dilation speed, and skin elasticity. He begged further forgiveness to collect a few drops of blood, a swab of mucus from each nostril, and a dental imprint.
"To establish some baselines," he said, "and compare with your other records once we get those."
"Of course," she agreed, wincing as he removed a few hair follicles from her temple, right beside the fresh bruise. "But I will absolutely draw the line at any diagnostic that requires me to disrobe," she warned him.
He blushed, but Vi snorted. "You definitely sound like Caitlyn when you're putting your foot down."
It was not the first time she'd heard that, that she'd given Caitlyn her stubbornness while Tobias passed on his warmth. "Is there any chance you've found her?" she asked Jayce as he packed up the case of biological samples. "Or my husband? I understand my being kept here is contingent on their absence."
"You being kept here," he said slowly, "is contingent on us figuring this thing out."
"And the others?"
"As far as Mel has told us, Caitlyn and Tobias are both working today, but that could mean they are anywhere on either side of the river." He sighed. "Maybe once we've sorted this out we can develop some kind of long range communication device. Anyway. Try to stay awake. We want to watch your brain function."
"I assure you I am not concussed," she said.
"I know," he said, and he sounded almost sad about it. "Vi, can you —?"
"Keep babysitting? Sure. Just give me a heads up before Cait gets back, yeah?"
Once he agreed and walked back out the door, it hit Cassandra how tired she was. Her day had started early but not unusually so — a banal meeting with some merchants on the other side of the city. She'd hoped to catch a few moments with Caitlyn before leaving the house, to suggest they have lunch and further discuss Caitlyn's thoughts on the Undercity, but Caitlyn hadn't answered when Cassandra knocked on her door. Vi had not spent the night, a fact Cassandra tried not to find relief in at the time, but now Vi watched her, babysat her, spinning a wrench idly with her left hand while Cassandra fixed her hair.
The room was well-equipped, at least. A fire burned in the little grate to the left of the door, warming the space more than she might have expected. A student's cot near the fire looked sturdy enough and was strategically situated to hide the cot's occupant for a moment behind the door as it opened. Cassandra sat on it, but rose again when her body threatened to collapse atop the patchwork quilt.
She still had questions, so many questions about the entire situation, about who'd taken over her seat, but as her pacing led her close to Vi, the words she said were, "I see they're closing Stillwater. I understand you spent several years there before my daughter arranged for your release."
A different woman, one closer to Cassandra's expectations and experience, might have looked down in shame. Vi smiled at her. "You understand correctly."
"You're still quite young. Why were you there for so long?"
"Most enforcers don't care how young people are before throwing them in. Or at least, they didn't use to care." Vi seemed to wrestle with that statement before adding, "and it's a long story."
Cassandra raised her chin, beyond tired of that sentiment. "I believe we have plenty of time, unless you mean to renounce your responsibilities towards Jayce and myself, or unless anyone requires some other measure of my physical fitness."
Gods, she hoped they didn't.
"Why do you want to know?" Vi asked, her tone perfectly measured.
Cassandra put one hand on her hip and gave Vi an imperious look, the sort she'd perfected years ago when Caitlyn started dating. "My daughter seems rather attached to you, or at least she was the last time I saw her."
"Oh, she's still rather attached to me," Vi said, in a tone that told Cassandra far more than she'd asked for.
"Indeed. Well, my daughter is my concern, and therefore, her attachments are my concern as well."
"Your daughter is twenty-four years old."
"Twenty-three," Cassandra corrected. Then she blinked. Vi's gray eyes stayed on her behind that lock of dark pink hair that always fell over her face, not needing to remind Cassandra why she was wrong. If everyone was right, if this wasn't an awful dream, Caitlyn was twenty-four now, and Cassandra had missed her birthday. It was the first birthday in Caitlyn's life that Cassandra had missed.
She stepped away, hiding the sudden wetness in her eyes by staring at the fire.
"Twenty-four. Of course. Yes. What kind of cake did she have?" she asked, trying and failing to keep a light tone.
"She didn't."
Cassandra turned. "What do you mean she didn't?"
"She was… We were all busy. I didn't even know it was her birthday until weeks later. She didn't want anyone to know."
"But her father knew!" Good heavens, what had happened to Tobias that would neglect such a thing?
Vi said nothing to that, but went on spinning the wrench between her thumb and forefinger. Now that Cassandra had the time to really study her, Vi looked cleaner than she had the night she'd yelled at the entire council. She looked much cleaner than she had the morning prior to that when she'd climbed through Caitlyn's window, when Caitlyn had introduced her simply as "Vi, from the Undercity."
"What exactly is your relationship with my daughter?" Cassandra asked.
When Vi smiled, it was so soft that it almost rendered her pretty despite the scars. "We're in love."
Cassandra opened her mouth to ask her planned series of follow-up questions — Vi's career plans as an ex-convict, her political affiliation, her family's background, her financial situation, etc. — but a knock came at the door. A second later, the door creaked open, and the top of an enforcer's head appeared around it to say, "Commander Kiramman just arrived, sir."
Vi hopped down from the table, suddenly wide-eyed, mouth soft with anxiety.
Cassandra mouthed "Commander?" more to herself than to Vi, trying to match that title with her own surname.
Then the door opened wide, admitting a woman Cassandra would have known anywhere, under any conditions, in any timeline, but who looked so different that it stuck Cassandra in place.
Caitlyn walked with easy confidence Cassandra had ached to instill in her, her whole body exuding authority that had only a little to do with the uniform she wore. What really stuck Cassandra's attention, though, was her face. Caitlyn's left eye — the eye that would have faced Cassandra's side of the room — was hidden by a solid blue patch that strapped around her head.
"I'm so glad you're here," Caitlyn told Vi, not even pausing to look around. "I have some news you'll be very interested in."
Vi made a strange noise like a choke and a laugh together. "Yeah? Funny enough, um. Hey, you should sit." She turned towards the spare chair, the one near the fire place where Cassandra now stood, and froze when she met Cassandra's eyes.
"Are there new developments?" Caitlyn asked, walking towards Vi. She looked more relaxed than Cassandra had seen her in many years, wearing a sturdy day-work uniform of a senior enforcer rather than a junior officer's fancy dress uniform. Her hair was longer, too, falling easily past her shoulders, where a small golden pip winked gently in the firelight.
Commander. Kiramman.
How long had she been gone, again?
"Look, Cait," Vi said. "I don't actually know how to say this, but…"
Caitlyn finally noticed the direction Vi's awkward attention and turned her head to follow it. Time, already too in flux for Cassandra's liking, halted as she looked straight into her daughter's twenty-four year old face, which now looked painfully closer to thirty.
Cassandra opened her mouth to say something, anything to match the explosion of emotions in Caitlyn's one visible eye, but what could she say? Every quip, every attempted explanation, every banal greeting fell miles short.
Finally, she managed, "What have you done to your eye, darling?"
Caitlyn took a half step forward, lips parted, and fainted.