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Vi has been unconscious for four days. One hundred and three hours, to be exact. Not that Caitlyn is counting. Not that she’s keeping track, counting every passing second with bated breath.
Vi has been unconscious for two days. One hundred and three hours. Jinx has been locked up in a cell for one hundred and two. Caitlyn has spent a majority of that time pacing her bedroom as Vi lays unconscious in bed. She has spent a minority of that time trying to figure out what Ambessa is planning. In the grand scheme of things, Ambessa is the more pressing issue - but to Caitlyn, the only thing that matters is Vi.
She has spent maybe ten minutes of those one hundred and three hours in the basement where Jinx is being kept.
There are a handful of reasons she hasn’t gone down there, the main one being that she wants to keep an eye on Vi. But she also is a bit nervous to spend more than five minutes at a time in the same room as Jinx - especially just the two of them. But she refuses to bring any guards with her when she goes down to deliver Jinx’s food - that would only bother the girl, and Caitlyn had no desire to do that. Not when Jinx was being so cooperative.
Jinx’s surrender had taken Caitlyn by surprise. It had seemed sudden, out of nowhere. At first, Caitlyn was certain that it was a trick. That if she even attempted to apprehend Jinx, she would find a bullet between her eyes faster than she could blink.
But it wasn’t a trap. Jinx simply gave herself up once the two of them had gotten Vi to safety, and she had remained silent in her cell ever since.
It still puzzles her. Could Jinx really have just given up? She had seen the way Jinx was ready to die back in the ventilation system, the way she had given up once Vi had her pinned, but she assumed that was just a matter of circumstance. But now, she had Jinx locked up in her basement with no weapons, no outside communication, no upper hand.
She doesn’t understand. But if Jinx is going to just give up and play nice, then Caitlyn figures she may as well try to do the same despite their differences.
That’s how she finds herself standing in front of Jinx’s cell, gazing in at the girl’s hunched over figure. From what Caitlyn has heard from the guards standing at the doors, Jinx hasn’t been much trouble at all. In fact, they claimed it was like she wasn’t even there most of the time. She had spoken once or twice - shouted a few times, but the guards said nothing was there when they came to check on her - but other than that she was fine.
Jinx’s hair is loose. The long locks hang far past her shoulders, down her back, all the way down to her feet. They had to take her hair out of their braids before putting her in the cell in case she was hiding anything in those thick braids, in that bronze jewelry holding it together.
She looks younger like this. The way her long hair frames her face makes her look softer, smaller.
Is this what Vi sees when she looks at Jinx? Is this version of Jinx ‘Powder’?
She can faintly understand why Vi would try so hard to protect her. Like this, she looks harmless. Like a child. Just a little girl.
The thought strikes her hard.
Jinx… Jinx is a child. Well - Caitlyn actually doesn’t know her age, but she knows that Vi is in her early twenties and that Jinx is a few years younger than her.
So… a child. Perhaps nineteen at oldest. Still just a teenager. She isn’t even a quarter way into her life.
It’s the first time Caitlyn actually realizes that.
She knows very well that part of what made Jinx Jinx was her own failure. Piltover’s failure. The Enforcers, the Council, Caitlyn herself - they had all failed Jinx so horribly. Their mistreatment molded her into the person she is now. She isn’t entirely to blame.
But if Jinx is only a teenager, only a child, then… everything just seems to hit harder. Everything she’s done, everything she’s been through…
The thought of it leaves Caitlyn feeling a bit breathless. Angry - not at Jinx, but at herself. At Piltover. At the unfairness of the world they had created.
Caitlyn hates Jinx - or, she’s supposed to. Jinx is a menace to Piltover. Her body count is higher than Caitlyn could even conceive of, and she had - she had killed Caitlyn’s mother .
She isn’t right. She’s a monster, a murderer, a terrorist.
But she’s also just a child. She is Vi’s baby sister. She is someone who has been failed time and again, just a byproduct of the world that Piltover has manufactured.
It’s so difficult to imagine the Jinx she sees now as the one who has ruined her life. It’s so hard to picture this little girl and see her as a villain. Caitlyn has seen Jinx’s cruelty first-hand multiple times; she’s been abducted by her, forced to watch as Jinx murdered her mother, helpless to do anything else - but she also saw Jinx in the ventilation system that day, readily accepting death at her sister’s hands. She saw the way Jinx screamed and cried and folded in on herself when that little girl sacrificed herself in an attempt to take down the beast that had used to be their father. She saw the emptiness in Jinx’s eyes as she assured that Vi got to safety, that she got her wounds taken care of, before readily surrendering herself to Caitlyn.
She’s horrible. She’s a menace, a murderer, a terrorist. She’s a kid, a sister, someone who has been abandoned over and over again.
Truthfully, everything inside of Caitlyn that hated Jinx had died off quite awhile ago. That hatred rotted her from the inside out, turned her into someone she hated. She had promised Vi she wouldn’t change, and then allowed that hatred to control her, morph into the type of person Vi had previously thought all Enforcers were.
When she realized how severely that hatred had changed her, something inside of her shifted. She allowed that hatred to turn her into something vile. Jinx had certainly done the same - she was just weaker than Caitlyn, more defenseless, because she didn’t have the type of privileged life that Caitlyn did.
So really, Caitlyn didn’t hate Jinx. Parts of her wanted to more than anything. Some of that leftover rot churned in her stomach, snarled in her chest, begging to be let out - but Caitlyn kept it in.
Hatred had already done so much to their society. She couldn’t let it do any more.
She stares down at Jinx, curled in on herself as she bites at her nails. She’s unsure how long she’s just been standing here. Jinx has certainly noticed her presence by now, but she hasn’t done anything to acknowledge her. Caitlyn didn’t expect her to.
Her eyes catch on the two untouched trays of food sitting at the door. Something in Caitlyn’s stomach twists. Guilt, maybe? Sorrow? Emotions she really shouldn’t have for someone like Jinx, but she does anyway - because she’s just a kid. Just Vi’s baby sister.
Jinx is already malnourished enough to begin with. It was something Caitlyn had noticed upon their first meeting - her gaunt cheeks, her stick-thin build. She only seems to have gotten worse since what happened at the council.
Caitlyn clears her throat. Jinx doesn’t even glance at her.
“You should eat,” she says, trying her best to sound authoritative.
Jinx doesn’t seem bothered. She just stares down at her hands, picking at her bleeding nails. “What’s the point?” she asks. She sounds tired. Like she’s already been defeated. “You n’ your Enforcer buddies are probably gonna string me up in front of all the Pilties soon. Shoot me, slit my throat, hang me and watch me suffocate while you all cheer.”
As long as Caitlyn is the one in control of Jinx’s sentence, she refuses to let that happen. If anything happened to Jinx under Caitlyn’s watch, Vi would be ruined. The one thing Caitlyn wanted more than justice for her mother was Vi’s happiness.
It was almost surprising, just how quickly she found that her world orbited around Vi. Just how much she would do to make Vi smile.
She hadn’t been good in the past, but she had the chance to change everything now, and she would. Starting with Jinx.
“No one will lay a finger on you,” she says, and it is the wholehearted truth. “I will not let anything happen to you until Vi is awake.”
Jinx scoffs. “Leaving your dirty work to my dear ol’ sis, huh? Just shove it all on us Zaunites over and over ‘til we’re drowning, not a single care in the world.”
Caitlyn feels the muscles in her jaw tense. Jinx was so… irritating . “That is not my intention. I just mean that the only person who has any right to decide what happens to you is Vi.”
“Right,” Jinx mutters. “Let the big softie decide what happens to the big bad terrorist. Not like she has any biases or anything.”
Caitlyn knows that more than anything. Vi won’t want Jinx’s punishment to be harsh - if she wants a punishment for Jinx at all. Whatever happened between them in the past few weeks, months - however long they had been reunited - Vi seems to have changed her mind on her sister being gone.
Caitlyn doesn’t blame her. She can see it too. The strange softness of the girl in front of her can only be Vi’s little sister. Can only be Powder.
Jinx puffs out a breath, blowing her bangs up. “... How is she?”
She tries desperately to fight down the small smile tugging at her lips - not that Jinx is even looking at her. The more Caitlyn sees this version of Jinx, the more she can’t help but think about how similar the two of them are.
“She’s still asleep,” she replies. “She’s doing much better than she was before. The doctors were worried before, but now they seem very hopeful about her recovery.” Jinx nods her head, but doesn’t respond other than that. “When she’s up, I assure you that the first thing I do - once I make sure she’s alright, that is - is inform her of your whereabouts. I’m sure she’ll want to see you as soon as she can.”
“Yeah,” Jinx quietly says. “She’s stupid like that, huh? Only person who’s ever actually wanted to see me.”
“Not stupid,” Caitlyn says, because Vi is far from that. She is stubborn, yes - a bit too pig-headed for her own good - but she is certainly not stupid. “Just… as you said, ‘a big softie’. She sees the best in everyone. Cares about everyone, no matter who they are.”
She watches as a bitter smile grows on Jinx’s face, small and sorrowful. “Yeah. Always been like that. It’s…” She grits her teeth, squeezes her eyes shut. The sorrow is plain on her face, and for some reason, it pains Caitlyn as well. “It’s so annoying . She needs to pull her head outta her ass and realize not everyone is as good as she thinks.”
“It’s better than the opposite,” Caitlyn offers, and perhaps it’s a bit insensitive considering who she’s talking to, but it’s how she truly feels. It’s better to have a positive outlook than a negative one. Caitlyn had seen very well where her negative outlook and hatred had gotten her. She never wanted that again. “She’s probably the best person I’ve ever met.”
“Shocker,” Jinx rolls her eyes, “the Piltie hasn’t met a lot of great people in her big happy utopia. Almost like all you Topsiders are just as trash as the rest of us.”
Her heart wasn’t in that one. It was almost funny, if it wasn’t sad. Truthfully, it worried her. Jinx was losing her passion, her sense of self, every day she spent in this cell. Every day Vi was unconscious.
Caitlyn hoped she would wake up soon.
She watches Jinx’s nose scrunch up, her eyebrows furrow. She mutters something under her breath to someone or something Caitlyn can’t see, before heaving out a sigh.
“You really care about her, huh?” Jinx asks, and her voice is tight. “Never thought I’d see the day someone like us would have one of you wrapped around their finger.” She puffs out a breath, frustrated and upset and sorrowful. “Guess she’d be the one to do it, though.”
“I do care about her,” Caitlyn confirms, and she hopes that it can provide some semblance of comfort to the girl. That even though Jinx hates her, she knows that someone is keeping an eye on her sister. “Though I haven’t been the best at letting her know that.”
“Well apparently she likes you a whole damn lot, so,” Jinx shrugs. Her head tilts to the side like someone is speaking to her, before her fists clench. “Shut up.”
Caitlyn doesn’t say anything. She knows that Jinx sees and hears things that aren’t actually there. It scared her a bit before, back when they first met, to see Jinx shouting and lashing out at nothingness, but now she doesn’t mind. She hopes that if things work out well, she can get Jinx the help she needs.
“Don’t take my sister for granted,” Jinx snaps, angrier than she was before. She assumes that whatever Jinx had heard upset her quite a bit. “She doesn’t need another person just tossing her away.”
“I know,” Caitlyn says, and she does. Vi has been hurt just as much as Jinx has by many people - even by Caitlyn herself. Once Vi is awake and everything is sorted, Caitlyn plans to make it explicitly clear just how much she cares for her. “I won’t.”
There’s a long silence as Jinx goes back to picking at her nails. There’s not much else to say. Jinx hasn’t moved to touch her food - hasn’t moved from her spot at all, actually. Caitlyn presses her lips together to prevent herself from sighing aloud.
At least she had gotten more progress than she thought she would.
“Goodbye, Jinx,” she says as she turns to leave, though she isn’t expecting a response. She only manages to take a few steps.
“Caitlyn,” Jinx calls, and she freezes.
Caitlyn. Her name. Not a nickname, not ‘Hat Lady’ or ‘Enforcer’ or a crude imitation of Vi’s ‘cupcake’. Caitlyn.
She turns. “Yes?” she replies, and her voice comes out infinitely softer than she intended.
Jinx works her jaw, tugging on her fingers. After a moment of silence, she looks up. Her eyes are horrifically violet.
Her eyes hadn’t been like that the first time they met. Shimmer induced. She doesn’t remember what colour they used to be - perhaps blue like Vi’s were - but she knows they didn’t look like that. She would’ve remembered. She wonders, faintly, why Jinx would use Shimmer. As a crutch, maybe. To cope with reuniting with her sister, only to have her ripped away again. Or if it was for something else - Caitlyn had seen the speed at which she moved now that she was enhanced by the drug.
It didn’t matter. Jinx’s Shimmer-induced eyes stared at her, glowing in the dark of her cell, and Caitlyn couldn’t look away from them.
“You better be good to her,” she says. Angry, sad, still protective of her big sister even after everything. For some reason, it warms Caitlyn’s heart, just a bit. “And this sure as hell isn’t me giving you my blessing or whatever, got it? I’m just warning you - if you hurt my sister, I’ll burn this entire place to the ground.”
Caitlyn didn’t doubt that. She was sure that Jinx was being completely honest - but that didn’t scare her. She wasn’t threatened.
“If I hurt your sister,” she says, “I give you my full permission to take me down.”
A look of interest flashes in Jinx’s eyes - a look of relief, maybe, if Caitlyn isn’t completely deluding herself - but it all disappears as Jinx gives a stern nod and scowls at her.
“Now scram,” she hisses, “you’re ruining my mood.”
Something in Caitlyn almost wants to tease her - weren’t you already in a bad mood? , or I’m honoured you approve of our relationship - but she shoves it all down. She’s unsure of where it came from. It’s like something she would say to Jayce, but certainly not to Jinx.
“Okay,” she says instead. She glances down at the still-full trays of food. “Don’t forget to eat. Vi will be worried.”
Jinx remains scowling, but there’s a softness behind her eyes - or maybe Caitlyn really is just finally growing delusional. “Whatever,” she mutters, and she turns her back to Caitlyn.
With all of that sorted, Caitlyn’s chest strangely feels a bit lighter. She turns around and begins to walk away, to return to check on Vi. As she exits through the door, she hears the sound of Jinx biting into an apple, and she can’t help but smile.
She feels like she really got through to Jinx. She can’t wait to tell Vi about it.