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The clock ticked past three.
Outside, Piltover’s rooftops stretched beneath a silver moon, bathed in that cold, familiar glow of a cloudless night. Caitlyn knew this view too well - the chimney’s sharp silhouette in the moonlight, the warm amber window two buildings over that blinked out at precisely 1:42 a.m., without fail.
A stranger’s routine, unknowingly performed like a lullaby for someone behind glass.
She had memorized it all. A map, a mantra, anything to hold onto while the hours stretched hollow and long.
Curled on the window seat, Caitlyn sat with her knees drawn to her chest, her night robe loose around her frame. Beside her, a porcelain teacup sat forgotten, its contents long since gone cold. She hadn’t touched it in over an hour. She hadn’t moved in just as long.
Then, finally, the stillness broke. A figure slipped from the shadows, walking with the stiff, defensive gait of someone trying not to be seen. But Caitlyn would have known her anywhere.
Vi.
One of her boots dragged slightly every few steps. Just a whisper of hesitation before her foot met the ground - almost imperceptible unless you were looking.
Unless you had been watching.
Her hood was drawn low, but a strand of red hair caught the moonlight and flicked into view. That bright, defiant color Caitlyn loved.
Then she saw the other red.
Blood.
It streaked down her arm, across her throat, soaking deep into her shirt. Dark stains bloomed beneath her jacket like they belonged there. A thick drop slipped from her elbow and hit the cobblestones below.
Caitlyn had never wished for worse eyesight more than in that moment.
Vi reached the front door, her fingers fumbling with the key like they didn’t belong to her. The lock clicked. The door creaked, making the first sound in a house that had grown too still. Too large for one person’s worry.
Caitlyn didn’t move. Not as footsteps shuffled inside. Not as they passed down the hall. Climbed the stairs.
Then the bathroom door. Then the shower.
Water hit tile in a steady rhythm - same as when Caitlyn had come home hours ago, covered in grime and blood and grief, trying to rinse off something buried in her skin.
Ten minutes passed.
Still, Caitlyn sat at the window, eyes locked on the place where blood had met stone.
Five more minutes.
Then the door opened. The scent hit her first: sharp, sterile, familiar – the sting of antiseptic.
She turned.
Vi stood in the hallway, damp hair plastered to her face. Water trailed down her cheeks in uneven lines, mingling with a thin line of blood that still wept from a shallow cut above her brow. A haphazard bandage clung to her ribs, already blooming red. Her arm was lined with butterfly stitches, the kind Caitlyn’s father had taught Vi how to place months ago.
“Hey,” Vi said softly, her voice slurred just enough to betray her. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
Caitlyn’s eyes flicked to the bandage at her side, then back to her face. Her reply came just as gently, a mirror of that same effort to keep things from unraveling. “You didn’t.”
Vi leaned against the doorframe, favoring one side. She gestured vaguely at herself, her mouth tugging into the shadow of a smile. “Looks worse than it is.”
A joke missing its punchline.
Caitlyn didn’t smile. She didn’t even blink.
She wanted to drag Vi to the mirror. Make her look. Make her see the woman Caitlyn had just watched stagger into their home. The blood. The bruises. The way she always seemed to walk the line between defiant and self-destructing, like she thought pain made her real.
Instead, she stood. Calm. Controlled. Cold in a way that didn’t feel like her but had been taught into her bones.
“Are you drunk?” Her voice held no accusation. It was just an attempt to determine what version of Vi had come home.
Vi's answer came too fast. "No. Just -" She waved her hand vaguely, as if that might blur the truth. "Someone spilled their drink on me. After.” Another gesture. “You know."
"I don’t," Caitlyn said, voice honed and level. "That’s the problem."
Vi exhaled, jaw tightening. Already on the defensive. "Come on, Cait -"
"Where were you?"
It wasn’t really a question. They both knew that.
Vi hesitated. Her jaw worked once, twice, grinding down truth until only the smallest piece escaped. “Out.”
Caitlyn didn’t answer. She just stared, the kind of silence that stung more than shouting would have. A pause to see if Vi would try again.
The defiance drained from Vi’s shoulders, and for a moment, she looked small. Like something fragile wrapped in wet clothes, her weight tugging down the string that had been cinched tight around Caitlyn’s chest since sundown.
A tired smile tried to surface. It didn’t make it past her mouth. “Didn’t think you’d be waiting up.”
"I always wait up," Caitlyn said. The words cracked, sharper than she meant. “You know that.”
Vi exhaled, long and unsteady, pushing her damp hair back from her face. The light caught her knuckles - split open again, the skin raw and pink.
They had just healed.
This morning, Caitlyn had kissed them. The skin had been soft then. Whole.
"I just -" Vi started, then faltered. She swallowed hard. “I dunno, I had to get out. Clear my head or - shit, I wasn’t exactly planning it.”
Caitlyn didn’t answer. The words inside her chest were still molten, and she didn’t trust herself not to burn Vi with them.
Vi shifted in the silence, her weight pressed to the doorframe like it was the only thing keeping her upright. “You’re angry,” she said, not quite asking.
Caitlyn pressed her lips into a tight line. She was trying to find the safest path across the minefield between them, but every step felt like breaking glass. Too many times, she’d said the wrong thing, done the wrong thing - put hurt in those gray eyes.
“I’m not,” she said at last. And she wasn’t. What she felt was messier, heavier, something without a name.
She meant the words as reassurance. But they landed with a thud, off-kilter and empty. Vi's eyes flicked away, and Caitlyn knew she’d missed her mark.
Again.
“Could’ve fooled me,” Vi muttered, crossing her arms. “You look like you’re two seconds from calling a doc or dragging me off to the station.”
“I’m not mad,” Caitlyn repeated, more quickly now. “I’m -”
I don’t even know what I am.
She exhaled through her nose, reining herself in. “You vanished, Vi. No message, not a single word.”
Her voice dropped, steadier now. “You said you’d let me know when you needed to go back down there. You promised.”
“No,” Vi replied, cool and immediate. “I said I’d try.”
Caitlyn blinked. The first real edge of frustration slipped into her voice. “So what? Today you just decided not to try at all?”
“Oh, for -” Vi turned away, then back again, her hands slicing through the air between them. “After today, I didn’t really feel like reporting in to you.”
“Reporting?” Caitlyn repeated, the word curdling in her mouth. “That’s what this is now?”
Vi’s jaw locked. Her silence said more than any words could have.
“You think I’m treating you like some case file?” Caitlyn stepped forward now, voice tightening. “I was there, Vi. I saw what happened. I watched you try.”
Vi flinched like the words landed somewhere deep. Her eyes darted away, just for a moment. When they came back, they were colder.
“This isn’t about that,” she said tightly.
“It’s exactly about that,” Caitlyn said, her own restraint fraying. “You shut down the second we got back. You vanish for hours, then come home like this and I’m supposed to just lie in bed next to you and pretend we’re fine?”
“I didn’t ask you to pretend anything.”
“No, you didn’t ask anything. You just left.”
“I needed space!”
“So you crawl back to that hellhole and let strangers beat you half to death?” Caitlyn’s fists clenched at her sides, trembling now. “That’s your space?”
Vi’s expression twisted. Not with shame but something harder. Older.
“That ‘hellhole’,” she said, voice low and unshakable, “is the only reason I’m still alive from the last time you left.”
The words hit like a strike across the face.
Caitlyn didn’t flinch. Not visibly. But something shifted behind her ribs. The guilt, dulled by time and necessity, lurched in her chest like something freshly opened.
They both knew it had never really gone away. It wasn’t supposed to.
“It was that place,” Vi continued, “and Loris. I won’t apologize for going there when I need to.”
Caitlyn swallowed hard. The bitterness of Vi’s words burned on the way down.
“Needing something doesn’t mean it’s good for you,” she said, voice cooling again. “When I asked if you were still in this fight… I didn’t mean that.”
Vi scoffed, and Caitlyn smelled it then, beneath the antiseptic and soap: the sour sting of cheap alcohol. The final nail in the lie.
“Spare me the lecture,” Vi growled, waving her off.
“I’m not lecturing you, Vi,” Caitlyn said, jaw set tight. “I’m trying to understand. But instead of talking to me, you let someone crack your ribs like it’s -”
“I won, alright? All of them.” She waved a hand, off-balance. “No busted ribs. I'm not... I'm fine. I can still show up to work tomorrow.”
Caitlyn stared at her, stunned. Her heart hammered against her ribs like it wanted out. It wasn’t even that Vi thought Caitlyn cared about her making it to work.
It was another part. The quiet confession hidden inside the bravado.
All of them.
Not a fight. Multiple. Because apparently, one wasn’t enough.
Something sharp rose in Caitlyn’s throat, vicious and impossible to swallow.
“What am I supposed to do with that?” she asked, voice rising despite herself. “Am I supposed to congratulate you? Celebrate? It looks like you did that all on your own.”
Vi let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Don’t start another fucking intervention. I’m tired of hearing it.”
“And I’m tired of saying it,” Caitlyn shot back, her helplessness bleeding into anger. “But you walk in here covered in blood - gods know whose - reeking of alcohol, and then lie to my face like I wouldn’t smell it on you.”
Vi threw her hands up - too fast. The motion pulled at her bandages, and Caitlyn’s stomach twisted with the urge to stop her, to catch her arms before she tore herself open again.
“Fine. Yeah. I drank.” Vi’s voice cracked into the space between them. “So fucking what?”
She looked at Caitlyn then - not with shame, not even with remorse. Her eyes burned, wild and raw, lit with fury that had nowhere safe to land.
“Sorry I’m not your perfect Kiramman,” she spat, the name curling bitterly off her tongue. Her mouth twisted into something that was almost a smile, almost a wound.
“Straight spine. Shiny badge. You don’t drink, you don’t crack, just tuck your grief into neat little folders and lock it in a drawer.”
Her voice dropped, rough with contempt. “You walk around like none of it touches you. Like keeping it all neat and tidy makes you better at hurting.”
That hit something raw, Caitlyn wasn’t prepared for.
“That’s not fair,” she said quietly.
“No, it’s not,” Vi snapped. “But neither is watching a kid bleed out in my arms while you play peacekeeper for a city that doesn’t give a shit!”
“Don’t you dare -” Caitlyn hissed, stepping in, heat rising in her chest. “Don’t you dare say that to me when I had to look his mother in the eyes and tell her we couldn’t save him. When I sat down to write the damn report with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.”
She took another step.
“We both lost him, Vi. We both failed.”
Vi looked down. But Caitlyn wasn’t done.
“Every time I close my eyes, I see his face.” Her voice broke just slightly. “And right next to it, I see yours.”
That made Vi look up.
Her eyes were peeking out through the red strands, bloodshot and burning. But something had softened. They weren’t the eyes of the woman Caitlyn had fallen in love with, but they were close. Close enough to pause the storm for a heartbeat.
Caitlyn drew in a shaky breath, anchoring herself. “I see that pain you carry like it’s oxygen. And maybe right now you need it. But you can’t keep refusing to face what losing your family did to you.”
Vi blinked once. Then the softness vanished like it had never been there.
“Stop trying to fix me, Caitlyn!” Her shoulders drew tight again, every muscle braced. “I’m not your broken little Zaunite project you patch up so you can feel better about what you did.”
“That’s not -” Caitlyn started but she caught herself. Chose a different route.
“You’re not a project,” she said, slower now. “You’re the woman I’m trying to love the way she deserves to be loved.”
The words dropped like stone into water. For a long moment, neither of them moved. Just the echo of breath and pain and history in the air between them.
Then Caitlyn spoke again, quieter, “But that’s the problem, isn’t it? You don’t think you deserve it.”
Vi didn’t respond. She just stood there, chest heaving, jaw clenched so tight it looked like it hurt.
“Because deep down,” Caitlyn went on, her voice rough with emotion, “you think this -” she gestured toward the bruises, the stitches, everything standing between them. “- this is what you’ve earned. The guilt. The hurt. Like it’s penance. You think pain is the price you pay for all the people you couldn’t save -”
“Stop,” Vi warned.
But Caitlyn couldn’t stop. Not now.
“You think you’re only worthy of suffering. That love is something -”
“I said stop !” Vi’s voice cracked like thunder.
“I won’t !” Caitlyn shouted back. “Because I’m not going to watch you disappear into this version of yourself that thinks you’re unlovable!”
Vi stood frozen, like someone caught mid-fall. Her breath came ragged, hands twitching at her sides. Then she turned and stalked out of the room without a word.
Caitlyn’s heart jumped.
“Vi?” she called, panic suddenly crowding her throat.
No answer.
She moved fast, feet bare and silent against the stairs, but her breath was loud in her ears. Each inhale tighter than the last.
By the time she reached the kitchen, Vi was already at the cupboard, one hand reaching -
“Vi,” Caitlyn said again, quieter, breathless, desperate. “Please - please don’t drink more.”
Vi froze. Then, slowly, turned to face her. Her brow furrowed, not in anger now, but disbelief. Almost hurt.
“ Water, Cait,” she said, holding up the glass like proof. “Bleeding all over your fancy marble floors makes me thirsty, apparently.”
She slammed the cupboard shut. The crack of wood-on-wood made Caitlyn flinch.
“But thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I didn’t mean -”
“No,” Vi cut in, her voice going cold. “You did. Because you think I can’t be trusted to get a glass of water without sneaking a drink.”
“Can you blame me?” The words came too fast, too sharp - instinct, not intention. Caitlyn regretted them the second they hit the air.
Vi laughed, loud and joyless. It echoed off the walls around them.
“Right. Of course. And here we are again - me screwing up, you keeping score. And now you’re falling apart because I’m not performing recovery well enough for you.”
Caitlyn’s eyes started burning. Even the blind one. It couldn’t see anymore, but it could still cry.
Vi shook her head, muttering under her breath as she filled her glass, “Gods forbid you ever feel like you’re not in control.”
“This isn’t about control, Vi,” Caitlyn said, the word rushing out of her. “I’m scared. ”
Vi froze mid-sip.
“I’m scared of watching you destroy yourself,” Caitlyn said, voice rising. “Scared of seeing you come home bleeding, not knowing if this time will be the last. If the next fight will bring you back in a body bag.”
Her breath hitched, throat closing around the next words.
“I’m scared because I love you!”
The words erupted - too big, too painful to hold back.
“Every single piece of you. Even the ones you shove away. Even the parts that hurt me.”
Tears slid down her cheek, hot and helpless.
“And I’m scared that I’m not enough. Not enough to make you want to stay. To make you want to live, not just survive.”
Vi’s mouth opened. Closed. Her eyes dropped to the floor like it was the only thing solid in the room.
“Don’t put that on me,” she said.
And her voice - her voice - sounded so young. Like the fifteen-year-old who got thrown into a hole and never really climbed out.
Something shattered inside Caitlyn at the sound of it. All she wanted was to wrap her arms around Vi and hold all the broken pieces together. Not to fix her. Just to hold.
But then the words registered. What they really meant.
“My love is a burden to you?” Caitlyn asked, her voice barely more than a breath. Fragile. Like she was terrified to speak the words, and more terrified of what the answer might be.
Vi looked up, guarded and aching, but too proud to admit either.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she muttered. “You’re the one who just said how hard it is to love me.”
“I didn’t say that,” Caitlyn replied, taking a cautious step forward, trying to close this distance between them. Even if only the physical kind.
“You didn’t have to.” Vi’s voice dropped to a whisper, laced with poison. “It’s written all over your perfect fucking face, Cupcake.”
It landed like a gunshot.
Not a teasing nickname. Not a flirtation. Not the affection passed between kisses and laughter.
A weapon.
Caitlyn went still. Her chest seized, then collapsed in on itself, pushing out the last of the air in her lungs.
She knew this was the alcohol talking. The pain. The anger neither of them knew how to hold without throwing it. But knowing didn’t make it hurt less.
When she lost her eye, the pain had been immediate, electric, consuming. She’d gone to her knees, blood dropping onto the ground and still managed to hold on. But this? This made something in her let go.
And Vi saw it. The change in her own face was instant, every sharp edge vanished.
“Cait,” she said, soft now, reaching out like a hand could undo what they had both just done.
She stepped forward.
Caitlyn stepped back.
“I think,” Caitlyn said slowly, her voice scraped raw, “you should sleep on the sofa tonight.”
Vi flinched, and for the first time all evening, she didn’t try to hide it. Her grip tightened on the glass, knuckles whitening.
Then the wall came back up.
“I would’ve anyway,” she said, too fast, too flat. “Didn’t exactly think we’d be cuddling after this.”
The words cut deeper than either of them expected.
Caitlyn didn’t respond. She turned and walked upstairs on legs that barely felt real, every step slow and unfamiliar, like she was walking through someone else’s nightmare.
At the top, she shut the bedroom door behind her.
And then she let herself fall.
Her back hit the door and slid down, her knees folding under her. She landed on the floor soundlessly, crumpling into the quiet.
She sat there, frozen. Staring at nothing until everything blurred.
The weight of the fight pressed in - into her chest, her throat, her eyes.
Their words echoed like shrapnel. Not because they were true, but because they existed at all. Proof of where they were now. How far they’d fallen. Words flung in helplessness and fear.
Don’t put that on me.
Vi’s voice echoed through Caitlyn’s mind, circling like a vulture around the softest parts of her.
Little Zaunite project you patch up so you can feel better about what you did.
Caitlyn didn’t even realize she was crying again until a tear slipped off her chin and hit the back of her hand.
Walk around like none of it touches you.
Minutes passed. Maybe more. Time had no shape now. No weight.
The only reason I survived when you left.
The room felt too quiet. Her thoughts too loud.
Cupca-
The echo of their love - bent, cracked, nearly unrecognizable - was interrupted by a flicker.
Light.
She blinked, chest still tight, and turned toward the window.
Across the street, the warm amber glow from the window cut through the dark. The light that always went dark at 1:42 a.m.
Tonight… it had turned back on.
A stranger’s routine, always so precise, broken. Just like that.
A cycle, interrupted.
And for some reason, it made something loosen in her chest.
Caitlyn stared at the light for a long moment. Her eyes still burned. Her throat was still raw. But she felt like she could breathe.
She stood slowly, wiping the tears from her face with the sleeve of her robe. Drew in one more breath. Then she walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
She found Vi still on the couch. Curled awkwardly on her side, one arm beneath her head, the other resting over her bandaged ribs. She hadn’t pulled the blanket over herself, not really.
Her breathing was even, but her eyes were open.
She hadn’t fallen asleep either.
Caitlyn hesitated in the doorway. Then stepped forward and knelt beside the couch.
Vi turned her head. Their eyes met - tired, glassy, full of everything they hadn’t said right. And everything they had.
“Can I stay?” Caitlyn whispered.
Vi blinked slowly. “Yeah,” she said. Her voice was hoarse. “I was hoping you’d come.”
Caitlyn didn’t wait another second.
She eased onto the couch, body curling into Vi’s, their limbs aligning like old rhythms, like nothing could erase the shape they made together.
Vi winced - just barely - as Caitlyn’s arm slipped around her side. Caitlyn stilled. Adjusted instinctively. Shifted her weight without a word.
Vi exhaled. Her shoulders dropped. And then she tucked her head beneath Caitlyn’s chin like she was finally letting herself come home.
They didn’t speak. They just breathed with each other.
After a while, their fingers found each other, slipping together without effort. It felt inevitable. It felt right.
Caitlyn lowered her head and pressed a kiss to Vi’s forehead, her voice barely above a breath.
“I need you to know that loving you isn’t hard,” she murmured. “It’s just… sometimes it hurts.”
A pause. One heartbeat, maybe two.
“But loving you will always be the simplest thing I do.”
Vi didn’t answer, not right away. But her fingers curled tighter around Caitlyn’s.
Then, finally, she let out a breath. Not sharp. Not guarded. Just slow. Measured. Like she was trying to let something in without losing her grip on it.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I know.”
Another beat passed.
“I didn’t mean it,” Vi added, barely audible. “About… your face.”
Caitlyn let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. The smallest laugh slipped out with it, warm and real. “I’m glad you think it’s perfect, though.”
Vi huffed something that was part laugh, part relief. “It is,” she agreed, and nestled closer.
They didn’t need to say more.
Outside, the window across the road still glowed.
In the quiet, as their breathing fell into rhythm, Caitlyn understood that the fight hadn’t been a sign of distance - it was proof of effort. Of love, in its rawest shape.
And with that small certainty, as sleep crept in and Vi’s warmth curled against her, Caitlyn’s final thought was simple:
We’ll get through this.
Because love like theirs - messy, bruised, exhausted - wasn’t broken. It was real.
And that wasn’t just enough.
That was everything.