Archive of Our Own ^beta

“And if you won’t come, keep this message for your own sake: something is always missing. Keep it without pain, even though it hurts, and in secret.”

- Caio Fernando Abreu 

I won’t forget you

I will celebrate you 

- francisco el hombre, o tempo é sua morada

There was going to be a statue. 

Cait had asked her opinion, but that required having thoughts , something she deliberately avoided those days. 

She woke up, helped with search and rescue efforts, trained, went back to Cait's place, drank herself stupid to forget the stench of decomposing flesh, and blissfully passed out. Rinse and repeat, day in and day out. No one had escaped the war unscathed, even those who survived - Caitlyn’s chain smoking added a layer of smokiness to the sweet scent of her skin and yellowed the fingernails of her right hand, and Vi was only fully sober when she woke up in the morning, and even then it was only every other day. Nicotine, alcohol, shimmer. In the aftermath of Noxus’ attack, everyone picked a poison and stuck with it.

But the statue. There were statues already, she knew. One for people lost in the same riot that took her parents. One for Vander, which she only got to see after getting out of jail. The big ones for the Council members who died because of Jinx’s attack. Statues littered Piltover and Zaun, and they always felt terribly similar to graves - or, at least, what Vi imagined graves to be like, given that none of the people she lost were ever given the privilege of a tombstone.

Back in her pitfighting days, when she’d lose a fight and get so drunk she could barely see straight, she would sometimes drag herself to the foot of Vander’s statue. She’d try to find his warmth in the stone’s cold eyes - his mirth, his kindness, his love - but found it lacking, and couldn’t tell what hurt the most: the hope that this would be the time she’d find it there waiting for her, or the certainty that it would never happen. Every so often she would punch it, sobbing, begging for Vander to send her just a clue from wherever the fuck he was, a note or a fucking insight on what she was supposed to be doing with her life. 

The statue, predictably, did not answer. Neither could Vander himself, as she would later learn.

If pressed, Vi would probably say she couldn't really see the point of yet another monument. Graves, at least, were private enough, or so they seemed to be whenever she accompanied Cait to lay flowers for her mother, but a statue of Jinx in the middle of Zaun was hardly the place where she could mourn for her sister in solitude. If Pilties wanted to assuage their guilt or if Zaunites wanted to send a message, she honestly couldn’t care less. If she had her way, she’d have nothing to do with it. 

At that point in life, Vi should already be aware she hardly, if ever, had things go her way.

“You want me to give a speech?” She said, stunned. 

“That’s what I said, yes,” Ekko said, twirling his pasta uninterestedly around his plate. His cheeks were gaunter than they used to be, which was ironic, given that he now enjoyed all of the benefits that came with his position in the Council in Medarda's seat. “Or that’s what we voted for, at least.”

“Getting it through the Council was hell ,” Sevika said, pouring herself another glass of wine. Seated next to her, Cait pursed her lips ever so slightly - unnoticeable to some, enough of an indication to Vi that she was not pleased about Sevika’s constant raiding of her family’s wine cellar. Vi had half a mind to remind her that these dinners were her idea - she was the one who insisted Sevika and Ekko join them every week or so to discuss how things were going with the Council. 

Ostensibly, it was a show of force. Sevika sat on the Kiramman seat, but she was very obviously not a Kiramman, and Ekko was also not a Medarda, no matter how reluctant the Council was to allow the Noxian clan to keep their place at the table. But if Commander Kiramman was seen fraternizing with them, it would send the clear message that they had her support, which was an ace up their sleeves they used more often than not. Before leaving to do Gods knew what, Mel articulated it all from the shadows, using her influence and respect to whisper words to the right ears and make it seem like a deliberate play on Caitlyn’s part, a delicate show of force to ensure her influence over the council despite giving up her seat to focus on building Piltover and Zaun’s defenses against potential forthcoming attacks.

In reality, Caitlyn was just trying to be nice.

But what nice meant to Pilties meant something else for Undercity rats. Backhanded compliments and a stark reminder of how much they didn’t fit in Topside made sitting on a table with too many forks and food more expensive than a room and board in Zaun, at the very least, as pleasant an activity as pulling teeth. The presence of servants, the extremely expensive bottles of wine and the tiny servings did nothing but make them uncomfortable and on edge, and most dinners ended with Vi, Ekko or Sevika snapping at each other and storming out in frustration. All of the things left unsaid and unfinished between them hovered like the gray in Zaun, choking and poisonous; the resentment and the guilt they carried aimed like a loaded gun on their napes, and all of the poorly healed wounds kept opening back up, bleeding all over the fancy gold-trimmed charger plates and silver cutlery with each clipped conversation and bitter small talk. 

Vi would bet her right arm and a good portion of her spleen that the only thing she, Sevika and Ekko could wholeheartedly agree on was that those dinners sucked, and they would rather bathe in the Undercity’s sewers than willingly spend any more time than what was strictly necessary around each other. But Caitlyn was so earnestly trying to do something right, no one had the heart to tell her as much.

Yes, they had been through far worse than a Topside dinner. It was still fucking awful, though.

“The Ferros were with us from the beginning, but if I have to listen to that motherfucker Giopara ever again, it’ll be too soon,” Ekko said. “ It’s a slap in the face of this council, young man, after all the grief that terrorist has caused us- ”

“I wish I could shoot him,” Sevika said, earnestly. 

“That makes two of us,” Ekko sighed. “But the assemblies in Zaun were substantially in favor of building it, so I guess he just had to take the loss. Asshole . Anyway, there’s going to be a ceremony to unveil the statue in the upcoming days, and the plan is Caitlyn is gonna say a couple of words before you-”

“You didn’t- fucking-” Vi stuttered, food forgotten on her plate, “You didn’t even ask me!”

“If you could give a speech at the unveiling of a statue in honor of your sister?” Ekko raised an eyebrow, “Yes, I didn’t think I’d have to. Given that it’s your sister.”

Funny how people only remembered she was related to Jinx when they needed something from her. Most of the time, people spoke of Jinx as if she was untethered to reality, something bigger than life that most Zaunites admired and Pilties despised. The memory of Jinx belonged to everyone, was invoked by all sides of the political spectrum for their own personal gains, and yet. Her grief made her lonely . 

She had all this love for Powder, a love so strong it carried her through hell in Stillwater and beyond - it was her guiding light in the storm, the only certainty she had in life, and before Caitlyn carved a place at her side, frankly the only reason she had to keep going. 

But Powder was gone. 

Powder was gone, and what the fuck was she supposed to do now, with all the love she kept carrying around? She wandered aimlessly, the insurmountable weight of it heavy on her shoulders, and people only saw fit to acknowledge its presence when they needed something for her. Never to share the burden, always to add to it. No one, aside from Caitlyn, had told her they were sorry she lost the only person left of her family. 

Not Sevika. Not even Ekko. 

And Caitlyn had said that they were grieving - that he was grieving, and rationally Vi knew that she was right - that people wore grief differently, and that it was all too raw, and that everything was happening so fast, and she knew this, she knew , but it was just so hard to feel it when people took the effort she made to keep her knees from buckling under the weight of the love that remained for granted that sometimes she-

All she saw was red. 

“ Fuck you. Find someone else, because I’m not fucking doing it,” she said, pushing her plate away. “I’m not a fucking dog at your beck and call, Ekko, I don’t fucking- I don’t want to talk about it. Not to you, not to Cait, not to anyone-”

“Darling,” Cait placated, “be reasonable about this-”

“Reasonable? Why? Because a bunch of fuckers decided my sister was the symbol of something we could never have, and now I have to share this- share her with everyone else?” She yelled, standing up. Her fists were shaking - if in anger or from the sheer amount of alcohol she’d been consuming, she couldn’t tell. “Everyone who ever knew her is in this fucking room and Cait didn’t even like her, and now I have to stand there and coddle a bunch of people who think they’re grieving someone who they didn’t even fucking know -”

“Fuck you , Vi,” Ekko yelled back, standing up. His chair tipped backwards, hitting the floor, and Caitlyn flinched at the noise, too reminiscent of a gunshot for comfort. “Every single fucking day since we joined in that fucking Council Sevika and I have been through the fucking mud trying to make her death mean something, and you have done jack shit-”

“I’ve been digging corpses out of rubble for days , if you didn’t fucking know-”

“You have no ideas on how to get Zaun out of this mess, you can’t fucking contribute to any discussion, you’re always with your head up your ass thinking you’re the only fucking person in this world who gets the right to grieve-”

“Guys,” Caitlyn tried, eyes wide, worriedly raising her hands to signal that they were reaching a point of no return. Sevika poured herself more wine without a word.

“Am I supposed to be okay with people wanting me to help them grieve for someone they didn’t even know -”

“If it was you , she would be doing something!” Ekko exploded, punching the table and rattling the plates of barely touched food. “ Fuck you! This is why everyone was better off in the universe where you died!”

Vander used to tell her that there were three things she could never take back - a punch, a drink and a word. In her mind, she never really quite got it. A drink too many was easily solved by throwing up, and if you were strong enough to throw a punch, you should be strong enough to withstand the fight. Besides, a fist hurt far more than words. Words never gave anyone a shiner. 

Or so she thought. 

Ekko’s words rang in her ears like a gunshot, and she felt her knees weaken, ass falling on the chair. His eyes widened, as he had just realized the weight of the words that rolled off his mouth.

“Vi-” He started, but snapped his mouth shut.

“What do you mean?” Caitlyn said, stunned. “I thought you said you were sent to a universe with no hextech. When you told us about where you’ve been and the singularity, you only said- What do you mean, a universe where Vi died?”

“I- Ah, shit.” Ekko said, placing his elbows on the fine linen of the table and holding his head with his hands. “In that universe, when I gave Vi the tip for the job at Jayce’s lab, she somehow died in the blast. This was- the reason Hextech was never created. Because a Zaunite kid got blown up before it could come to life.”

Silence was thick, cloying - not even Sevika dared to pour more wine on her glass, despite it long being empty. Vi’s ears rang, mouth stuffed with cotton - sprawled on her chair like a puppet with cut strings, staring emptily at Ekko like she could see through his pinched expression; he had told her he was stuck in a universe where Hextech was never created, and that Vander never died and Powder got to grow and thrive. He had held her hand through it too, as she desperately tried not to cry as she recounted her sister’s final moments. Somewhere else, she’s happy , he had said, and she bit her lip so hard it drew blood not to let the scream clawing out of her throat free, in another universe, she’s the best version of herself, living her best life . 

He had just failed to mention that all it took for that to happen was her not being around.

“If someone had died in the blast, Mel wouldn’t risk supporting Jayce,” Caitlyn muttered. “That would’ve- Oh. I can see it-”

Sevika grimaced, finally reaching for the bottle. 

“Do it,” Vi said. “Take me back, I’ll do it. I’ll kill myself.”

“Vi-” Caitlyn said, heartbroken, but Vi ignored her, staring straight into Ekko’s eyes. 

“You can go back in time, can’t you?” she said, finally reaching for enough strength to stand on her two legs, “If this- If nothing of this comes to pass. If Powder- If she gets to be-”

“Violet, come on,” Sevika said. 

“Let me do it,” she insisted. “At least it’ll have some- purpose. At least it’ll mean something-”

“Vi, I can’t ,” Ekko said, voice cracking as his eyes filled with tears. “I’m- so sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“Why?” she pressed, “You said it yourself, I have no fucking use in this timeline. Let me be of use. Let me make sure no one has to lose anyone.”

“But I would lose you,” Caitlyn whispered, hurt, and it snapped Vi out of her trance - she looked at Caitlyn, eyes brimming with tears, and felt her own heart breaking at the thought of leaving Caitlyn behind. But if she did it, Cait would still have her mother, and Jayce would still be around; she might suffer now, but if the world changes into what it could’ve been, Cait wouldn’t even know she existed at all. 

It was the better option. For everyone. 

“I literally cannot,” Ekko said, eyes downcast. “The Z-Drive got blown up in the explosion, and it only went back for four seconds, nothing more. We would need another singularity-”

“You cannot seriously be considering this!” Caitlyn protested. 

“I’m not , Kiramman, I’m just- It’s impossible, Vi,” he said, defeated. “I shouldn’t have told you at all. It changes nothing. It was just-.”

“Yeah, little man,” she said, standing up and collecting her jacket from the back of the chair. “Shouldn’t have let me know at all.”

In the ashes of what once was The Last Drop, amidst charred shelves and bent iron, Vander’s stash of special alcohol remained where it always had been since she could remember.

Vi had half a mind to wonder why it had never been moved at all, but there were more pressing matters to attend; namely, to get so drunk she would forget her own name. Or at least, this is what she intended to do - she was diligently working through a bottle of sherry, leaning heavily on the burnt counter so that the bent stool she precariously balanced herself on wouldn’t topple over-

A punch sent her flying out of her seat, sprawling on the dirty floor face first. 

“What the-” she said, turning over to see Sevika with her hand on her hip, glaring daggers in her direction. “Ah, fuck . Did you come for a rematch? Wanna do me a favor and finish the job this time?”

Sevika huffed, stepping heavily in her direction and pulling her up by her scruff. 

“Get the fuck up, Violet,” she grunted, “if you’re gonna drink and be miserable, get some actual grown up shit and a glass for me.”

“Dying is not gonna solve shit, ” Sevika said, pouring her another finger of whiskey. Vi held back a hiccup, downing half of it in a single go. 

“I’d die a thousand times if Powder got to be happy,” she muttered, reaching for the bottle - Sevika pulled it away, tucked it under her arm and glared. “Aw, come on -”

“Save me the self-pitying bullshit, Violet,” she said. “You’d die for her. What's the use? You can't go back in time and do it, there’s no fucking point.”

“Then I don’t know what the fuck to do,” Vi said, letting herself fall on the charred, ripped faux leather of the booth they both sat at, facing each other. Sevika pulled a cigar from her pocket, trying to light it with a single arm. “Want some help?” Vi offered, but raised her hands upon receiving Sevika’s answering glare. “Alright, point taken. See if I try to be nice to you ever again.”

“Don’t fucking weird me out,” Sevika said, finally getting it to light up and inhaling deeply. She looked outside, through the shattered glass of the window, watching people come and go. Life went on, Vi supposed. And which child of Zaun had ever had time to sit with their grief? Hunger and cold were more urgent than feelings. Grieving was a Topside luxury - Zaunites clenched their teeth and carried on. 

Vi was a Zaunite and no stranger to grief. Like every other Zaunite child, she was forged in it; could tell its shape and its scent from before she could walk. This, however, was the first time she was forced to acknowledge it, instead of sweeping it under the metaphorical rug and pretending it wasn’t there as she carried on living. 

In the aftermath of the war, she tried to keep busy with search and rescue and rebuilding - but there was no sense of urgency to keep her from spiraling, no desperate need for a roof over her head and food on the table. She was comfortable for the first time in her life, and yet in the absence of the desperate need for survival, grief festered in the empty recesses of her mind; where she had withstood unmentionable things in Stillwater with only her love for Powder and the determination to see her again to carry her through, she now wandered adrift, pain insurmountable. 

Everyone seemed able to move the fuck on - not just Zaunites, but Pilties too. Caitlyn, Mel, Ekko, even Sevika - they were all able to find some purpose and move forward. Once upon a time, moving on was second nature, as necessary as jumping and scurrying around into the deep belly of the Undercity. Why couldn’t she do it now? Why did this grief paralyze her so, like never before in her life? 

Through the shattered window, a little girl with bunny ears intently used a broken piece of a brick to draw a hopscotch on the ragged pavement. 

Sevika’s breath hitched, eyes watering. 

Everyone was moving on. She should be able to do it too. 

But sometimes - and Vi noticed this way before she experienced it herself - all the grief people swept under the rug would trip them as they went about their day, disorienting them so badly they couldn’t tell up from down, knocking the air out of their lungs; so much so that standing back up felt nearly impossible. For the first time Vi wondered if it wasn’t better to just air it out; open the windows and shake the dust off of the furniture, letting the sun into crevices and corners where grief would be tucked tight into. It would be hard work, she knew. She fucking hated cleaning day when she was a kid. But there was also an odd sense of satisfaction once it was done - when she laid her head on clean sheets and didn’t have to wander around looking for her underwear. 

And seeing Sevika trip over the unsaid made her feel like none of them had moved on at all - that moving on wasn’t only about moving forward, chasing the next thing and the next so there wouldn’t be time to think about all that was lost. 

“Hey,” Vi said, softly. “I’m sorry. About Isha.”

Sevika whipped her head around so fast, Vi had half a mind to wonder if she had whiplash - dark eyes wide, her lower lip trembled ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly, if one hadn’t been paying attention. And Vi was. 

She stared at Vi like a second head had sprouted from her neck. Vi held her gaze, daring her to say it was nothing, to tuck her anger and pain back in the crevices where they were hidden and carry on the very same cycle that got them where they were. Sevika hesitated, then poured them another finger of whiskey. 

“You know, I was so angry for a while,” She said. “That you survived, and the kid didn’t.”

“Lots of people seem to feel that way about me,” Vi said dryly, and Sevika scoffed, downing her drink in a single go. 

“I’ve lost a fuckton of people in this city. More than what I can even remember. I barely knew the kid, and it wasn’t the first kid I saw die. But I don’t know what was different this time around. I think-” She looked out the window once more. The little girl had called a friend over to play, their giggles making their way into the charred remains of Vi’s childhood, an echo of what once were the sounds of two sisters making the pub their home. 

“She was happy,” Vi said. “A happy kid. And- she made Powder happy.”

“For seven fucking years your sister was just a pebble in my shoe,” Sevika huffed, crossing her arms. “A fucking liability I had to deal with to get my job done. Then Silco is gone, and six months later, I write her name in a piece of paper to honor her death. Makes me wonder if I wasn’t just pissed at the person Silco made her to be.”

“Did he-” Vi cleared her throat, fingers tracing the rim of her glass. “I mean, was he-”

“He liked her, in his own way,” Sevika tapped her fingers on the table. The digits came out dirty with soot, dust and the general fumes of Zaun’s air, and she wiped them on her pants. “He treated her well. Protected her, that’s for sure, and sometimes would even risk his own neck to save her skin. But he- I don’t think he meant to. But his protection isolated her. On her own, she was- unpredictable. When Isha came around, that’s when I saw who she could’ve been, if he had let her grow. Or the person that would make you fight so hard for, I guess.”

Vi was silent, turning the glass on her hands and watching the whiskey reflect the light coming in from the street. 

“Did you know,” she said, “When I first landed in Stillwater, they sent me to Special Interest?” 

Sevika stilled, eyeing her warily. Special Interest were the prisoners that never made it out of Stillwater - even if they were released, whatever happened within those corridors kept a part of them forever in the island, haunting the living with stories of how much pain could a human withstand. Outside Stillwater's gates, Special Interest was just a rumor - of things so brutal, so disgusting, so horrifying, even the Undercity people, more than willing to believe the special kind of inhumanity only Topsiders could dish out, hardly believed they were true. 

Vi knew how true they were. 

She had the scars to prove it. 

“Kiramman said she found you in solitary,” Sevika said. “She didn’t mention Special Interest.”

“That she did,” Vi sipped her drink, licked her lips. Her hands trembled with the weight of the things she did not want to remember. “She doesn’t know, I never told her. I spent a while there and then got sent to Regular. Regular would beat the shit out of you, send you to solitary and beat the shit out of you once more for good measure if you were being difficult. And I guess I was difficult. Piece of cake when you’d been to Special Interest, though.”

“How long?” Sevika asked, and Vi shrugged. 

“After a while, you just lose track of time,” she said. “I guess it was about a year. Or something of the sort. Could have been just a couple of months, really. Hard to tell.”

“Is it true?” Sevika said. “What they say about Special Interest?”

Vi didn’t answer. Something dark and twisted crawled at the edge of her mind. If she didn’t get blackout drunk, she would get no sleep that night. 

“What do they say?”

“I heard a guy once say that they hooked live wires to his balls.”

Vi scoffed. 

“Oh, yeah. Guess that was a favorite. Not the worst thing they did, but they did do it a lot.”

She raised her eyes, and Sevika was eyeing her strangely - like she was seeing Vi for the first time in her life. “How old-”

“Fourteen,” she sighed. “You know how I got through that? Powder. Even at my worst, the worst fucking days, when I didn’t even know what it was like to exist without pain, I thought- Powder is out there. She’s out there, she’s alone, and I have to survive this so I can find her again. I can’t even- begin to tell you. What they did. And I would think of Powder, and I would think that I promised to protect her, and I flat out refused to give in. When I left Special Interest I thought, there’s nothing that will make me cave in now. Nothing . But then I got out, and everyone said that there was no Powder anymore. But I never - I couldn’t give up. Powder was the reason I was still kicking, and every once in a while I caught a glimpse of Powder still in there. Especially when Isha was around. So I had to try. I couldn’t give up. Because if I did, all that I went through- It’d be for nothing.”

Vi drained all of her whiskey at once - Sevika, silently, poured her another finger. 

“But now she’s dead,” she said, defeated. “Jinx, Powder, it doesn’t matter. She’s dead. And for so long I survived for her that I have no fucking clue what I’m supposed to fight for now.”

Sevika said nothing for a long moment, rolling her whiskey around in her glass. Outside, the two children decided they had enough of hopscotch, deciding to play hide-and-seek amongst the rubble still littering the streets. 

“I know jack shit about fuck all,” Sevika said, “but I think the problem might be that you know you’d die for Jinx, and you know you’d survive for her too. But would you live for her?”

Vi raised her eyes from the busted wood of the table. Sevika held her gaze. 

“In that universe, your death changed things for the better. In that universe, she took her pain and turned into greatness. She lived in your honor. And in this universe, you went through all of that for her, but you still won’t live for her. If her death means that you stop fighting, then- What was the point?”

“There’s no point,” Vi snarled. “I went through all of that shit , she went through all of that shit too, and now she’s dead, and I’m not. It was all for nothing in the end because there was no fucking purpose. There’s no fucking point.”

Sevika inclined forward, eyebrows furrowed. 

“Then make one.”

Vi stammered, choking on her own spit. Sevika leaned back, putting her cigar out on the table. 

“If nothing good comes out of this,” Sevika continued, “It’s an insult to both of you. It’s an insult to what you went through and an insult to who she was. And if in another universe she is able to channel all that pain into bettering the world, who the fuck do you think you are to do anything less than that?”

The kids outside had long stopped playing. There was no one around but the two of them, and yet the echo of all she had lived in that bar was loud in her ears - the loud steps of Powder chasing her around the bar, Vander’s booming laughter, Mylo and Claggor's antics. Vi was suddenly struck by the realization that she was the only person alive who remembered; these people would fade into the bloody reality of Zaun, another name forgotten amidst the long line of faceless people ground to dust by the cogs that made Piltover flourish. 

But she was still alive.

And she remembered.

She remembered the hunger, the cold, the injuries, the thickness of the air that made it impossible to breathe some days; she remembered the pearls of happiness tucked into everyday life, laughter and warmth coming from bodies pressed tightly against hers. Most of all, she remembered the anguish of losing it all - the coldness of Stillwater, the horrors of questioning, the disasters of war. Of all of them, only Vi had emerged, albeit not unscathed, but she remembered. And she could make sure they were not forgotten. She could make sure it would never, ever , happen again to anyone else, even if it was too late for her.

The bottle of sherry still stood on the counter. It was the first drink she ever tried, the first time she got so wasted Vander had to peel her off the floor and hold her hair back while she puked her guts out. After allowing her a couple of days to nurse her wounded pride, he sat her down with a bottle of sherry and a bottle of water side by side, and taught her to recognize the limits of her body - limits she had deliberately bulldozed through time and again, willing all of the pain to stop. She got out of the booth, legs unsteady, and picked the bottle up. 

“Leave that shit exactly where it is,” Sevika barked. Vi turned back to her, eyes wide in surprise. 

“You said it was some pussy ass shit!”

“I’m setting fire to it, that’s what I’m doing,” Sevika poured herself another finger of whiskey, still not looking in her direction. She cleared it in a single go, picking up what was left of her cigar, and looked Vi straight in the eyes. 

Vi swallowed around the lump on her throat. 

“I’m gonna say this once and only once,” Sevika said. “Not because I like you, because I fucking don’t. But because despite everything, I still hold a hell of a lot of respect for your old man. And-”

Her eyes got lost once more - eyes on the window, where the hopscotch still stained the asphalt of the street. The lump under the rug. She poured herself another drink. 

“Jinx talked in her sleep,” she said, finally, and Vi let herself fall against the counter, legs unsteady. “About you, sometimes. She never- She loved you, still. I don’t think she ever stopped. Even at the end.” 

Eyes watering. Bottom lip trembling. The grief in hiding, tucked into rolls of Sevika’s soft underbelly, the fragile and delicate parts of herself she would cover with her armor to forget they ever existed, until they emerged, swollen and bruised, demanding to be recognized, begging to be let out to air in the sun. Vi felt her eyes ache, and shivered when the first tear fell down Sevika’s rugged face. 

“You loved her too,” she whispered, more to herself than to Sevika; but Sevika grunted all the same, pursing her lips, and Vi felt her shoulders lighten with the realization that she wasn’t the only one, aside from Ekko, holding the weight of the love she carried for Powder and no longer had a place to go. Maybe she wasn’t alone in this. 

Maybe she had never been. 

“I’m sorry,” Vi said, quietly. “About Jinx.”

Sevika bit her lower lip so tightly, Vi had half a mind to worry if she’d chew it clean off. Despite her best efforts, the tears wouldn’t stop now that they’d been let out. So she poured herself another finger of whiskey, downed it quickly, and looked at Vi with red-rimmed eyes still overfilled with tears.

“I’m not saying this for you,” she said, finally. “I’m doing it for Vander, and for Jinx.  For your girl, back in Topside. For Ekko, and for everyone who’s counting on you and who sacrificed for you to be here. And I’m not repeating myself either. You don’t have the right to give to the world anything less than what she did. So don’t you ever think about opening a fucking bottle ever again. We clear?

Vi looked at the bottle of sherry in her hand, stunned. It called to her, promises of oblivion and peace. She could feel the shadows behind her, whispering memories she’d rather not remember in her ears, tracing the absent goosebumps on her flesh where the scar tissue stood, aching and itching. She wouldn’t sleep that night, even if she had some good six or seven drinks under her belt. It took far more than that to knock her out. If she gave in, she would remember. 

She had to remember. 

Vi placed the bottle back on the counter with trembling hands, and shoved them into the pockets of her jacket, fingers curled tightly around a fist. 

“Crystal,” she said, making her way out the door. When she reached the threshold, however, she looked back over her shoulder. “Hey.”

“What now , Vi?”

“I know the Council fucking sucks,” she said, shrugging. “If you ever need to, I don’t know. Throw some punches. Fuck shit up. Cait’s got this huge gym, and a sandbag only gets you so far. 

“Wanna get your ass beat so bad, wonder girl?” Sevika scoffed, but she grinned - tightly, and tear-stained, but still there. “Need your ego taken down a notch?”

“Hah!” Vi barked a laugh, opening the door and letting herself out into the bleak lights of Zaunite streets, “You fucking wish .”

“That’s an impressive shiner you got going on there.”

“You should see the other guy,” Vi quipped, running her fingers through the long hairs of Crow’s fur. The tortoiseshell cat purred like an engine where it laid on her lap, stupid thing it was, but it gave her something other than holding a tumbler to do with her hands. 

Caitlyn sat next to her, back resting on the same tree Vi sat against, and patted her lap - Crow stretched, yawned, and moved to sit on top of Caitlyn’s legs. 

“Traitor,” Vi muttered, and Caitlyn snorted, giving Crow a good scratch behind her ears. The early fall wind chilled the exposed skin of her hands, shaking the trees of the courtyard of the Kiramman Estate until they yielded some leaves to the ground. In the morning, gardeners would rake them all up and throw them away, but Vi quite liked the look of the leaves-covered grass. She picked one up, fiddling with it with nervous fingers. 

“You know,” Caitlyn said after a few moments, eye closed and head tipped back to rest on the trunk of the tree, enjoying the breeze. “I went to Demacia with my parents when I was a teen. Father loves museums, and I really can’t understand the appeal, but he wanted me to come with him to this place for an artist. She did mostly sculptures. Or just sculptures, I can’t really remember.”

Vi hummed, absently, thighs warmed where they touched Caitlyn’s. She put her hand on Crow’s head, finding the underside of her chin to scratch at the spot she liked best. 

“I didn’t really care for it,” Caitlyn continued. “but there was this plaque right at the door with a quote from a letter she wrote to a lover, I think. There’s always something absent that torments me. My mother thought it was just teenage drama, or something of the sort, but I became obsessed with it, because I always felt- Like there was something missing. Like I was chasing something, and I didn’t know what. I joined the enforcers because I thought it was- purpose. I thought I was looking for my purpose. But then-”

She paused, opening her eye and staring at Vi. Her remaining iris looked like the early morning sky, brilliant and beautiful, and so full of love Vi sometimes didn’t know what to do with herself when Cait decided to stare her down. 

“Then I met you,” she said, finally. Vi scoffed. 

“You sap .”

“It’s true!” Caitlyn said, adjusting herself so she could lean her head on Vi’s shoulder. Despite the slight jostling, Crow continued her nap as if nothing had happened. “It took me a while to get it. It was only- gods, this is really stupid. You know when I realized it?”

“Hmm.”

“When you called me a mongoose.”

Vi barked out a laugh, and Crow cracked one eye open, annoyed at the interruption. Vi’s finger’s found the skin under her collar and scratched - appeased, she curled on her back, belly out and paws curled. 

“You realized I was everything you were looking for when I called you a rat ?”

“Mongooses are not rats,” Cait said. “But it was- I don’t know. Everyone around me treats me with some deference. Like I’m inherently better than them for the accident of my birth. But you don’t. You treat me like I’m a regular person, so much so you can call me a mongoose to my face and the only thing I can do about it is calling you an angry oil slick.”

“Not the best of your comebacks,” Vi said, and Caitlyn giggled. 

“When we were taking you to Ambessa’s tent, I was thinking to myself, angry oil slick? Really, Caitlyn ?”

“Don’t worry, Cupcake, I didn’t notice,” she said, kissing the top of Caitlyn’s head. “Was too worried about dying to notice anything, anyway.”

“There,” Caitlyn breathed. “When you do that. Cupcake . To everyone else I’m Caitlyn Kiramman, or Commander Kiramman, or just- whatever the Zaunites called me-”

“Piltie bitch?” Vi offered, and Caitlyn snorted. 

“Sounds about right. But when you do that, it feels- like you know me, truly. Like a missing piece was just slotted back in place. I think what I was looking for was a way to be known, not like the person everyone saw, but as me . And you gave me that.”

Vi hummed, looking to the sky. Caitlyn once said that in their summer home, away from the lights and fumes of Piltover, the sky was so clear one could see all the stars from where they hung in a leg of the galaxy. Vi couldn’t even imagine what that was like. As it was, she saw only a couple stars, a dozen at most. 

Her eye socket ached something horrid. She still looked up.

“You said it made sense,” she muttered. “When Ekko said- you know. You said you could see it.”

Caitlyn raised her head from her shoulder, shifting so she could face her, cross-legged. Crow melted into the gap of her thighs, paws covering her face. 

“Because I could,” she said. “But we don’t know for sure, do we? We could stand here and conjecture. That was only one possibility out of an infinity of other possibilities, and who knows what exactly was the thing that made things unfold as they did. Imagine if instead of never making hextech, Jayce and Viktor had taken their research to Noxus.”

Vi grimaced at the thought. 

“But if I hadn’t made out-”

“And if my mother floated she would be a hoverboard, Vi.”

Vi spluttered, choking on her own spit as a disbelieving snort made its way out of her throat. 

“What the fuck -?”

“What?” Caitlyn said, unaware of just how out of pocket that sentence had been. Vi wiped her eyes, coughing, and placed a soft kiss on the skin of her forehead where the eyepatch made a dent, angry red and sore to the touch. She moved to take it out, but Caitlyn moved her hand away - she wished Caitlyn wouldn’t be so self-conscious about it, but figured it was not her place to say anything. 

“I get it, Cupcake,” she said. “There’s no use wondering if I can’t do anything about it. I just- I don’t know. I wonder. If it wouldn’t have been for the best.”

Caitlyn hummed, long fingers tracing patterns on Vi’s palms. Runes, she could tell - Caitlyn had made an effort to know what the runes attached to hextech were, diligently studying the plans her mother had left her to find a way to use their influence for the good of the city. She was so driven and focused, despite it all. Vi admired her like she seldom admired any other person. Caitlyn had admitted she had fucked up, had more than paid for it, nearly died , but was still doing her best to fix it. 

For all Vi could throw a devastating punch, she wished she had half of Caitlyn’s strength. 

“I’m going to say something,” Caitlyn said, not meeting her eyes, “and I need you not to take offense. 

“Sure.”

“I asked Ekko more about it, because while I could see it, there was still something missing. Yes, a Zaunite child dying because of an illegal research gone wrong would certainly raise questions, maybe even some commotion. But even though I love Jayce, I don’t think he’d have seen how what he was doing was dangerous . I think- he’d pin the blame on you guys. On how you were messing with things that you shouldn’t have. Or how the enforcers had failed him, failed to keep his work secure. Jayce was like a brother, but he had a hard time taking no for an answer.”

She paused, fingers now tracing the lines on Vi’s palms. It was grounding, soft. 

“Ekko told me that in that universe, two people died in that explosion. An undercity brat,” she paused, inhaling. “And the heir to House Kiramman.”

Vi’s eyes went wide, and she clasped Caitlyn’s hand tightly in hers - in the long hours they spent alone in their bedroom, exhausted and yet unable to sleep, they had talked enough to come to the conclusion they had once been on opposite sides of the door to Jayce’s lab. But the thought that she could’ve caused Caitlyn’s death never once had crossed her mind, until then - it made something cold trail down her spine, freezing her nerves. 

“It made sense then,” Caitlyn shrugged. “If the explosion killed not only you, but me, house Kiramman wouldn’t even need to withdraw funding from Jayce’s research. He was my best friend for ages, and he would never, ever have forgiven himself for that. I don’t- I don’t think he would have survived it, either. And without an heir, my mother would have- needed something to focus on,” she cleared her throat. “She was always passionate about bettering life for the Undercity - the circumstances would lead her to that. So in the end, what do you think changed the world for the better? Your death or mine?”

“Don’t say that,” Vi said, pained. 

“I thought about it from every angle,” Caitlyn said, giving her a sad smile. “We both die, Zaun and Piltover both lost something, enough to cause a change. Only you die, and it’s not enough to spur the Council into doing something, and now Jinx has no one to save her from herself. And if I was the only one who had died, the Council would ask for a pound of flesh. Or a thousand. And maybe Zaun would be no more.”

Maybe Sevika got her a concussion, Vi thought, stupidly, as she felt bile rising to her throat. The idea that for things to end well both she and Caitlyn had to have died that day made her sick to her stomach - it was acceptable when she was the only one who was gone. But to think Caitlyn wouldn’t- That she would-

Vi buried her nose on the crook of Caitlyn’s neck, clinging tightly. Suddenly squeezed, Crow let out an indignant squeak and squirmed from between the two of them, hopping on a bench to continue her sleep. 

“You know why I asked him, though?” Caitlyn muttered into Vi’s hair.

“You just said,” Vi answered, voice thick with emotion. 

“No, there was a real reason,” Caitlyn said. “It was because I made myself upset thinking about an universe where I could never find you.”

Vi raised her head, staring at Caitlin’s remaining eye. It was steady, if a bit misty. Where after the war Vi always felt like she was one small, minor inconvenience away from bursting into tears, Caitlyn couldn’t cry if her life depended on it. But the thin line of tears said enough - she kissed the tip of Caitlyn’s nose just to see the lines that showed up when she scrunched it. 

“You would have found someone else,” Vi said, and Caitlyn shook her head. 

“I don't think so, no. I think- whatever it is we have, it's deeper. More important.” She eyed the peaceful courtyard, the trees dancing with the wind, leaves finally accepting their time had come to an end. “I would’ve been what I was before I met you - drifting around looking for something to tether me to earth. A compass with no direction. Forever.”

Vi sighed, kissing her cheek. She couldn’t get enough of how soft her skin felt against her lips. In the rare times she got to sleep with her in the same bed without nightmares chasing her off, and in the even rarer times when she woke up before Caitlyn, she would cuddle closer and place her lips on her cheek - not even kissing, just scenting her, sleep-warm and pliant, curling an arm around her to bring her closer to her chest. Vander used to say home wasn’t a place, but people, and she got it the first time she had Caitlyn in her arms. No matter how crap the night before had been, it always made her feel at peace. 

“You seemed to be doing well without me, Cupcake,” she said against her skin. Caitlyn wrapped her fingers around her cheek, thumb tracing lines below her ear before pulling away. 

“I became an Enforcer for many reasons, but that absence - I thought it was because of it. To feel like I found a purpose or a direction in life.” She sighed. “But when Ekko said I had died too, can you believe I felt at peace?”

Vi grimaced, nose finding the curve of her neck once more. 

“Stop it,” she murmured, hoarse, feeling the telltale pressure of tears behind her eyes. 

“It brought me peace to know that the only reason we would not end up together was if we weren’t alive,” Caitlyn carried on, fingers finding the hair on her nape. “So we don’t know exactly what could have been. Maybe it’d be better. Maybe not. But there’ll always be something absent to torment us. This timeline is-”

“Fucked,” Vi offered, voice smothered by the skin of Caitlyn’s neck, and Caitlyn laughed. 

“Eloquently put, yes,” she said. “Yes, we lost too much, and there’s too much to do still, and the absences around us hurt. And it will always torment us, I should think. But even in that universe, there were many absences too. Ours, for instance. And I am sure that they will forever torment those we left behind as much as they torture us. This timeline might be fucked up, but it’s the one we have. And in it, I found you. I might be selfish for this, but despite all we lost, I- I wouldn’t change it for the world, Violet.”

The use of her full name snapped her to attention - she raised her head to look into Caitlyn’s eyes, saw the depth of the devotion held in them, and had no alternative but to kiss her. She would never get tired of it - never tire of finding comfort in Caitlyn’s arms, no matter how terrible the storm. 

“In all the lives that were,” Caitlyn whispered once they broke apart, laying a chaste kiss on her tattoo. “And all that will be. You’re my north, Violet. My soul will always be looking for you.”

Vi rested her forehead on Caitlyn’s shoulder, trying desperately to control the tears that insisted on leaking out of her eyes. They sat, embracing tightly, trying to keep each other intact through the wave of emotion that threatened to overcome them. 

Tired of the chill of the night, Crow stretched her spine and trotted back into the estate for some naps by the fireplace. 

“The gods truly must have their favorites,” Caitlyn said. “Look at that damned cat.”

“Tell me about it,” Vi sniffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I think- Ekko is right. I have to- It’s what I owe Powder. She should have lived a good life. And there are so many more Powders out there. Mylos. Claggors. If I- If there’s no turning back and fixing the past, I owe it to them to try and fix the future. I just- honestly. Call me out, if you think I’m wrong. I just don’t see how a statue will help.”

Caitlyn hummed, trying to fix the mess of Vi’s hair and failing miserably. 

“I know what that’s like. It’s strange, seeing people mourn for someone they hardly knew. When they unveiled Jayce’s statue-”

“Wait,” Vi straightened from where she rest her cheek on Caitlyn’s shoulder. “That happened? When?”

“Couple of weeks ago,” Caitlyn shrugged. “I didn’t want to bother you about it.”

“Bother me- Cait ,” Vi pleaded, “Fuck, you went on your own?”

“They made me give a speech while I was five steps away from my dead mother,” Caitlyn said dryly. “I’m used to it by now. It truly wasn’t so bad-”

“Don’t do this,” Vi said. “Don’t pretend this isn’t hard for you too. I’ve been a right asshole to you-”

“You had your own issues-”

“They could’ve sat in the backburner for a moment while I was there for you, Cait,” Vi sighed. “Don’t treat me like I can’t- We’re in this together, aren’t we? Like equals. And you’ve been here for me all this time, and I can’t ever return the favor because I’m so wrapped up in my shit. Fuck. You lost Jayce too. I’m so sorry, Cupcake.”

Caitlyn stared at her, eyebrows raised, and sighed. Vi placed her hand on her cheek - Caitlyn gripped her wrist like a lifeline and closed her eyes. 

“He was like a brother to me,” she said, quietly. “No one knew him like I knew him. Maybe Viktor, but they’re both dead. And now I’m-”

“The only one who remembers,” Vi completed quietly.

“Yeah,” Cait said, shoulder sagging. “People are offering me condolences for the people I lost. And part of me wants to tell them to shove it. They didn’t know my mother. They didn’t know Jayce. And yet they all tell me how wonderful they were, how tragic it is that they’re no longer around, how much they’ll be missed. But they weren’t wonderful people. My mother was a great Kiramman, but a frankly appalling mother. Jayce was brilliant and kind, but he was also self-centered to the point of self-destruction. They weren’t the perfect symbols people mourn when those statues come up, they were real people. With real flaws. And yet, I loved them. And I miss them so much I can’t breathe, sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Vi said, hoarsely. “I get it.”

“But the symbol is important,” Caitlyn said. “So is the narrative. By framing Jayce as the hero who saved us all, I could secure his personal funds to his mother, rather than having it seized by the Council, like it would have happened if he had been deemed guilty of all of this mess in the first place.”

“I can’t in good faith stand in front of the people I grew up with and say Powder died to save us,” Vi sighed. “That’s just a lie.”

“That it is,” Caitlyn hummed. “But she died to save you . And I think that this might be what Ekko wants out of this symbol. A message of community. Of sacrifice for others. Of honoring the sacrifices made for our sake to help us move forward.” 

Vi groaned, letting her head fall on her hands. 

“I asked you if you were with me for the fight,” Caitlyn said, kindly. “I think you thought it was just punching. But healing all of this- it’s gonna be an uphill battle. Maybe the hardest one yet.”

“Okay,” Vi nodded. “Alright. I’ll do it.”

“Thank you, my love,” Caitlyn kissed her forehead. “Anything else you might want to add to this lighthearted and whimsical conversation? Maybe take the opportunity to inform me you only have a handful of days left to live?”

Vi snorted, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Caitlyn moved until she was once again leaning against the tree trunk, and fished a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her jacket. Vi stared at it, the ritual - the cigarette hanging from Caitlyn’s lips, the click of the lighter as it lit up, the smell of tobacco and the taste of nicotine in the back of her teeth. Something so Caitlyn , she hardly remembered it for the crutch that it was. 

“I’m quitting drinking,” she blurted, and Caitlyn raised an eyebrow, waving around to disperse the smoke. 

“That’s good,” she said. “What spurred this on?”

Vi felt the tips of her ears redden. “Don’t laugh.”

“I would never.”

“Sevika beat some sense into me. Hey! You promised!” She protested when Caitlyn snorted. 

“Sorry. I just didn’t expect that,” she said, taking another drag of her cigarette. It looked so elegant in her hand. “But, you know, if that’s what did it, I suppose I owe Sevika some thanks.”

“Send her a fruit basket.”

“Violet, I thought you cared about me,” Caitlyn said, smiling. Vi shook her head, and took the cigarette from her fingers. 

“Don’t take me the wrong way, you look so hot when you’re smoking I don’t know what to do with myself,” Vi said, rolling it around in her hand. It was warm on her palms, like Caitlyn’s sun-warmed and sleep-soft skin in the morning. “But drinking - that’s a crutch. And you can only take a crutch for so long. So. Will you consider quitting this too?”

Caitlyn’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline, and she eyed her still lit cigarette on Vi’s hand. She picked it up, pressing the lit ember against the sole of her boot to put it out. 

“Alright,” she said. “I can do that.”

Vi pressed a kiss against the corner of her mouth. 

“I’m not good with words like you, but- You’re everything to me, cupcake. I couldn’t live in a world where you weren’t in either.”

Caitlyn smiled, gap between her front teeth as tantalizing as ever, and Vi was overwhelmed by a love so strong it nearly collapsed her lungs. I love you , she wanted to say. I think I’ve been searching for you my whole life too . 

Instead, she pressed a kiss to Caitlyn’s neck. 

“Hey,” she said, “Are there any guards patrolling around the courtyard right now?”

“Maybe outside the gates- Vi!” She squealed as Vi tackled her to the grass and silenced her protests with a kiss. 

The statue was not what she expected. 

It looked much more like the murals people had painted all over the Undercity, once upon a time, than the image of Powder she still had in her mind. To be fair, it hardly looked like Powder at all - it had features, alright, but they were generic, and it only reminded her of her sister if she squinted. The braids were there, but that’s not how she remembered Powder last, shaved head and tired eyes. But Vi barely had any time to look at it properly before she was shoved in front of the podium, pinned under the hundreds of expectant faces that swam into her vision. 

Her legs shook. It was some bullshit time to learn she was dead afraid of public speaking. She’d be angry at herself, if she could feel anything other than dread.

But she had the speech Caitlyn helped her draft in her shaking hands. Caitlyn herself had already said a couple of words - on unity, healing and community - and sat primly on her designated place by Sevika and Ekko, impressive in her military garb and eyepatch. Now it was up to her. And she had practiced so much, tried the words over and over to see which one fit better; they had even asked Mel to give it an once over and tweak some things to sound better. She just had to say them. Vi never considered that this would actually be the hardest part.

Vi’s hands were sweating so much, they left stains on the paper she had already crumbled between her fingers. 

“Um. Hello,” she said, clearing her throat. The statue loomed behind her - she raised her head to give it another look. “Well, people are gonna think I’m the ugly sister after this.”

Laughter broke out. She exhaled, relieved - in the corner of her vision, Caitlyn gave her a supportive smile as she began speaking. 

“I’m gonna- read a bit of this,” she waved the papers around. “I’m not as good as Cait- As the Commander. Still block with my face, after all this time. It must be scrambled eggs up in here and all that.”

Tentatively, she began reading - slowly, and taking pauses to squint at the page and clear her throat. She had spent hours practicing it in front of a mirror, but it was difficult to get it just right. If she had to give a speech ever again, it would be too soon. 

“Jinx’s final act of sacrifice was to save those she loved,” she said, finally. “And we owe her to make the best out of the chance she got us. To raise Zaun from its ashes into a place where people can flourish and thrive. To extend a hand and learn to forgive. To become the guardians of the memory of what once was, and to ensure that the horrors that lead to her sacrifice may never again come to pass.”

At the bottom of the page, Caitlyn had added a simple thank you. She wasn’t expected to be good at speeches, especially one in honor of her dead sister. But there was something else tucked under her tongue, something so honest she was half afraid of even thinking - under the statue’s foreign eyes, however, Vi couldn’t help herself.

“I know you all voted for this because of Jinx. Who she- The symbol,” she said, creasing the paper with how hard she held it against her chest. “And that’s okay. But before she was Jinx, she was Powder. My little sister. And I know you all lost people. So did I. I lost her. We lost our parents at the insurrection, and then we lost Vander, and now I lost her. I think- many of you dont have anyone left, like me. I only had her. And now she’s gone, and she’s not coming back, and I miss her every single day. It- hurts. So bad.”

Tears began to cloud her vision, and she tried as much as she could to keep them at bay. When that proved to be impossible, she wiped at her eyes with her hands. 

“I think-,” she continued, “whenever you guys look at this statue, I know you guys want to remember we’re strong enough to cause change. But I’d like to- If I could. I’d like to ask you to don’t think only about the symbol. Think about Powder. Who was small, and scared, and alone, and who thought she was beyond saving because of what she had to do to survive. Who deserved to be happy, and wasn’t. Think about Powder so that- It won’t ever be forgotten. So that it won’t ever happen again. To anyone. So that no one else has to feel like I feel.”

Her voice cracked on the last word, tears falling freely - she felt arms around her shoulders, guiding her away from the stage as she tried to hold back her sobs. Caitlyn’ sweet scent and cadence lulled her back to reality, tethering her. Her eyes were also misty, and she smiled like Vi was the bravest person alive. 

“You did it, Vi,” she said, and Vi clung to her hug and finally let the tears come. 

“What was she like?” Vi asked, “In that universe?”

Ekko said nothing, just sat next to her where her legs dangled from the platform in Powder’s hideout. It looked - barren. Devoid of life. But there were some signs here and there that this once was a place her sister occupied every inch of. Scratches and paint, tidbits lining the desk as if she had left expecting to continue whatever it was she was tinkering with. With her absence, the place lost its shape, and dust dulled the once brightly neon colors of the paintings she scattered around the place. 

Seven years and some change that she missed. How could she even begin to think she still knew who Powder was?

“Happy,” Ekko shrugged. “Smart. Beautiful. Quick as a whip. Everyone loves her there. She’s just- the light in everyone’s life.”

“That’s my Pow-Pow,” she sniffled. “You were right. I owe it to her. And to you. And to all of us. There’s no going back and changing what was, but- we can be better. We can do better. I can do better.”

Ekko said nothing, merely stared at the steep fall beneath their feet. 

“She missed you there, you know,” he said, eventually. “In that corner there- there was a little shrine to you. She talked to you every day. You were- You were always with her, in a way.”

I’m always with you , the words echoed around her head, even if I’m worlds away .

She tried to smile, but all that came out was a sob - then another followed, and another, and another, until she was fully sobbing on Ekko’s lap, desperate for that pain to either end or end her , whatever came first. It was overwhelming, all encompassing, disabling. She thought it was impossible for someone to feel so much pain and not keel over and die. 

But it wasn’t impossible to survive grief, she found, when her tears had eased and all that was left were swollen eyes and a clogged nose. It was merely human. And human as she was, she eventually couldn’t cry any longer. 

“Feeling better?” Ekko said. The painting on his face too was messed up by tears he didn’t bother drying. They were a right mess, the pair of them. 

“Not at all, actually,” she said. “I still feel like shit .”

“That makes two of us,” he said, waving his feet as he placed his elbows on his knees. “I’m sorry, though. For telling you about it the way I did.”

“Don’t be,” Vi said. “It’s-”

“Kiramman was right,” he said, shaking his head. “You always let people treat you like shit, like your feelings don’t matter, and you don’t even want a fucking apology?”

“ I’m a big girl, little man” she sniffed. “I can handle some tough love.”

“I know. But we like you, you dumb fuck,” Ekko said, slapping her nape playfully. “And when we like someone, we don’t want to cause them pain if we can avoid it. All your life you wanted to take care of us because you love us. Have you ever thought we want to do the same for you?”

“I- Okay,” Vi said. “Alright, okay, sure. I’ll take your apology. But only if you take mine too. I haven’t been helping at all , and the moping is hard to witness-”

“ Impossible ,” Ekko muttered under his breath, and she returned the favor of the slap. 

“ Anyway ,” Vi glared, “I’ve been an ass and I’m letting all of this mess fall on your shoulders, and that wasn’t fair. Isn’t fair. So I’m- I want to do what I can to help.”

“I get it,” he said. “I lost- a friend. And a potential, I suppose. But you lost your Powder. There won’t be another one. I- I’m sorry, Vi. I really am.”

She nodded, feeling another wave of tears coming - she groaned, letting herself fall back on the floor of the platform. 

“Fuck,” she said, “I’m so fucking tired of crying like a fucking baby.”

“Gross,” Ekko said, but there was a smile to the curve of his lips. 

“Fuck off,” she said, sitting back up and looking him in the eyes. “Thanks for everything, Ekko. I really mean it. Couldn’t have done any of it without you.”

He shrugged, linking her arm with his and leaning his head on her shoulder, like they used to do when they were children. They were children no longer. But there were other children around, who needed every inch of help they could get so they wouldn’t end up trying to patch themselves together like they both had been. 

“Are you in this fight, Vi?” he asked, and she smiled, nodding. 

“Hell yeah,” she said, standing up and offering him a hand. “Where do we begin?”