The First Drop

It only takes a matter of seconds.

There's not even time to breathe.

You look ahead and then you see it.

There it is.

The smoke.

The roar.

The air contaminated with dust and dirt.

The emptiness echoing in your ears and in the depths of your chest.

Throat burning.

And the simplest thing in the world: nothing.

This is how Caitlyn remembers it and this is how she told it to her mother and the doctor first thing this morning while they were treating the wound in her eyebrow and momentarily uncovering her left little-eye, to which they decided to apply a protective patch to prevent her from scratching her eyelid. The microcrystals and chips detached from the wall acted as shrapnel; fortunately, there will be no consequences.

Unfortunately, Jayce can't say the same.  Cait remembers perfectly how the body of her friend, almost a brother to her, practically stood unintentionally between her and the explosion. She said this because, despite the misfortune, the situation has not managed to take away the desire to talk that characterizes her so much.

It was a seen-and-not-seen moment.

Nobody expected it.

And nobody could do anything.

The Military Police collaborated as quickly as they could and, as she has heard the doctors speak these days, they were lucky, very lucky.

But today... today is another day. A different one.

It must be very early.

The sun barely comes through the room window because it has been raining all night and the only noise heard on the floor of the Piltover Clinical Hospital is the discreet resonate of the shoes of the guards doing morning guard down the hallway.

Caitlyn turns her head carefully toward the soft breathing coming from her left side, where she still can't see because of the surgical patch. She knows her mother is there. She stays awake every night, but today fatigue must have overcome her.

The little girl keeps her desire to ask her for water, as she does at home every time she is thirsty or afraid —a lame excuse, but one that works wonderfully to get her attention—, she frowns and scratches her free eyebrow. The clinical gauze is annoying and sometimes itchy, but now that no one is watching she can put her hand a little closer and scratch it...

“Caity, no way. Don’t you dare.”

Warning understood. And also she has even used the secret way to call her. It's serious. There is no other option. The adult voice sounds strong, she is not joking.

She lowers her hand suddenly and hides it in the sheets. No touching her face, her eyebrows, or the bruises on her nose that are taking so long to heal. It's annoying. And, judging by her mother's eyes —those so similar to hers— it’s clear that she is right and before the woman says it, she already knows what will reach her ears:

“Do not touch.”

And there it is.

Caitlyn sighs and this time is Cassandra who shifts in the chair where she has been sitting all dawn. She discreetly brushes her own hair with her hands and then clears her throat. Without her daughter even asking for anything, she is already reaching out to fill a glass of water with the jug on the nightstand and hand it to her.

Her daughter tries to catch it with her two little hands, but she immediately removes it —away from her childish reach—, gets up and takes a seat on the edge of the stretcher to give her a drink.

“You still can’t do it, and you know it.”

Yes, she knows. And that's why Caitlyn doesn't even bother to protest. The wounds on her face are a relatively immediate task pending healing for her body, but for the rest... she still has to wait much longer.

Even so, when she notices the glass near her lips, she can't help but slightly raise one of her hands —carefully wrapped in bandages— to feel a minimum of support, even though she still can't move the fingers.

“Issshh…” she shakes her head slightly, frowning more than a little, “It’s cold.”

The water, although exposed to the ambient temperature of the admission room, freezes her gums, especially the new hole in her prominent central incisors, one them that must have broken at some point during the explosion. Maybe with the impact of some rubble? Or falling face first into the ground? The doctors aren't sure, she doesn't remember it and probably no one will ever know.

Her mother smiles at her with the same expression on her face as when she first woke up, but at least there are no droplets in her eyes anymore, so Cait is happy. She has her mom with her, she is not on the Council —as always— and she has not spoken to her again about going to the dentist when everything is over, although she knows that the fateful day of fixing her chipped tooth will end up coming no matter what. Maybe, by then, the one with the droplets in her eyes will be her and not her mother.

Neither of them says anything. Cassandra simply watches her daughter as she helps her finish drinking and then carefully removes the glass. She looks at her in silence, carefully brushes a strand of hair away from her face so that it doesn't get stuck to the healing products that the doctors have applied on her scars during the night shift, and sighs.

“Go to sleep again, sweetheart."

This time it is she who tries to get up, but a clumsy little hand that can barely hold the sheets due to the cumbersome bandage she is wearing, rests on one of her thighs as an unexpected request.

“Mom.”

Mrs. Kiramman looks at her silently. She doesn't know what to expect. Maybe she's afraid. Perhaps she intends to ask her if she will return to the Council in the morning —and she does not intend to do so—. Maybe she needs to go to the bathroom. Or maybe she's just worried about how the tooth will look later. But ultimately, and judging by her daughter's eyes —those so similar to hers— Cassandra can get an idea of ​​what that little head is thinking about, and before the child says it, she already knows what will reach her ears:

“Has she woken up yet?”

.

.

.

It only takes a matter of seconds.

There's not even time to breathe.

You look ahead and then you see her.

There she is.

The smoke from the party room.

The roar of music at full volume.

The air contaminated with alcohol, drink and perfume.

The fullness of the heartbeats echoing in your ears and deep in your chest.

Throat burning.

And the most wonderful thing in the world: her.

It only takes four seconds for Caitlyn to more accurately remember those blue-gray eyes that are now right in front of her, even when they are not yet looking at her. The glass that the waitress is busy drying is stealing all her attention and seems like a mundanely unfair detail.

“Pretty?”

The word that she used to refer to her shoots out from between her teeth as if she had spat it out.

«How dare she call me “pretty”?»

The thought that repeats it hides at the bottom of its neural circuit because it depends on maintaining its strict sense of dignity at this moment.

A double rhetorical question to which she does not expect an answer bounce in every corner of her consciousness as if her head acted like a ping-pong table. Seeing her after so much time has left her short of words, but also short of metaphorical imagination to even visualize herself not being like an idiot in front of her.

Either way: no, Cait certainly isn't ready to face Violet's irises when she raises her head from behind the bar counter without changing the expression on her face even one bit.

She looks different. She looks beautiful. She has changed and at the same time, it’s incredible how much she remains just as she remembers her despite the years. And maybe the disco lights are playing tricks on her, but fortunately, she was able to see her more or less clearly while she was on stage with the guitar; there is no doubt: it’s her.

And judging by the way she's looking at her, she's waiting for something —her drink request, probably— but the Piltover girl hasn't even thought about what to say yet.

One.

Two.

Cait opens her mouth to pronounce her name, but nothing leaves her lips.

Three.

Four.

The waitress drops the cloth while they both look at each other in absolute silence.

One?

Cait has forgotten to breathe in front of her eyes when she catches her looking directly at her lips.

Two?

The face from the zaunite girl contorts into a grimace of surprise. She thought she heard her say something, but she's not sure.

Three?

Four…?

“…What?!” the waitress shouts, cupping one of her own ears with the free hand. She can barely hear anything between the noise of the people and the volume of the music.

There are no longer four but eight seconds that pass through her throat like a broomstick, that same broomstick with which someone could sweep away the traces of the little self-shame that Cait has left and that is now in pieces at her feet.

.

.

.

Vi can't even see her clearly between all this aggressive lighting. The main image that she receives in backlight (or rather in back-focus?) is a play of whitish flashes and shadows that comes from the vicinity of the performance and that, in truth, she can't wait for it to end. She can't focus well and forces herself to blink several times as she tries to figure out what the client is asking of her.

She is unable to distinguish what he says to her with the improvised lip reading or hear it over the booming music; this is going to be her worst service, and without Vander around she doesn't have anyone to help her either. She is alone behind the bar and has to make a good impression.

She is sure that there will be many uptight pilties arriving who can make a good fortune with daddy's money tonight; she cannot risk losing such an investment, especially at the gates of the great Young Innovators Competition; all those who feel well cared for will repeat tomorrow and, if possible, next year as well. It’s the first time that the bar has dared to do so much with the party and they have to make it worth it.

The girl moves her mouth again, but the bar is getting more and more crowded, the music is louder, and the lights keep flashing. She sees her in pieces, like flashes: dark hair, restless eyes and a half smile that transforms with each succession of images into a grimace that Vi is not able to decipher. Is she going to leave?

No, no, no, no.

It takes her, not four, but less than four tenths of a second to drop the glass into the sink —dirtying it again without realizing it— and she leans forward with both hands on the bar counter.

“What do you want?!” she exclaims now closer to the other's face.

With the roll of the cymbals and the broken scream of a much more than motivated Powder in the middle of the stage, the people burst into final cheers, the burst of white lights in the darkness stops just so that the blue of a pair of inquisitive sapphires greet her under the arch of two eyebrows that rise at the same time from the other side of the bar.

It only takes a matter of seconds.

There's not even time to breathe.

You look ahead and then you see her.

There she is.

One more client?

Caitlyn swallows. Vi breathes somewhat agitatedly. She is standing on tiptoe as close to the girl as he can by pulsing against the bar with her hands and muscles in full tension. She shakes her head, waiting for a reaction.

“Hello.”

Wonderful. Marvelous. A classic.

A stellar intervention. That fateful “hello” is the only thing that escapes from the piltovan lips just when the music has stopped covering the sound of her voice: now they can both be heard loud and clear and Cait is not really sure if the detail likes her or terrifies her at the same time.

“Hey, hello.” Vi returns in response, finally relaxing and regaining her normal height with a sigh of relief. “Sorry, I wasn't listening well. Tell me what can I get you.”

Four seconds of her smile.

Only four seconds and Cait feels more confident than ever just before saying what she's been waiting to say since she saw her on stage:

“…a glass of water?”

But she fails.

Vi looks up from the wooden bar she was finishing giving a couple of passes with the rag that was hanging from the belt buckle of her pants and looks at the young woman out of the corner of her eye.

“Water?”, She's almost sure she heard wrong, or so she wants to think.

They don't usually ask for something like that when it's the free bar hour. Maybe she's wrong and she's not going to have any luck with it. This girl in front is not the typical rich woman who spends her pay in drinks using the nightly bonus ticket, but rather a teetotaler with a headdress in the shape of a hat that Vi is having a hard time stopping looking at; furthermore, she's beautiful Perhaps her courtesy formula, that “pretty” has been a successful treatment for her. Regarding the little hat… it seems like an adorable detail. Although it doesn't fit her at all, isn’t it?

"Water" the young woman reaffirms her request. Escape forward. There is no other option.

When she gets her answer, the waitress shrugs and nods.

“Okay, I suppose.”

Cait lets out a deep sigh as the girl turns the back on her and throws the dirty cloth over her own shoulder with a wide movement of her arm, which —of course— does not go unnoticed by the piltie; just like the blue streak in the braiding of her hair. It’s a thing that contrasts completely with everything and, of course, matches in an ironically successful way with the scar on the neck and face. An adorable detail. It suits her, doesn't it?

«Coward», she thinks to herself and bites her lip as she leans on the bar with her elbows. It's not exactly a ladylike pose, but she doesn’t care about her mother's lessons right now; she needs to look like a confident person and to do that she has to move how she really feels confident.

A glass of water? Ridiculous. What was she thinking? Asking her for oil? Maybe even that nonsense would have made her laugh a few times, but it's not like she was very good at standing out for humor-jokes, so maybe blurt out the first thing that came to mind and what her throat cries after so many hours away from home has been the most appropriate and at the same time the least risky option.

Caitlyn jumps as the freshly opened glass bottle and a pair of iced glasses clatter on the wooden surface of the bar, just inches from her gloved hands. But the young woman straightens her posture immediately as she looks out of the corner of her eye at the waitress, who now seems to sway slightly to the rhythm of the new song as she serves her the drink with what she considers to be graceful mastery. She's good at it, but is she going to continue acting as if nothing had happened after seeing her face to face?

“Your water, miss” the girl from Zaun determines just as she finishes refilling her glass in a display of helpful charm, just as Vander had taught her since she started helping at the bar as a teenager.

Cait doesn't know if she is more affected by her own weird thoughts about the concept of "graceful mastery" with which she has previously classified her or by the fact that this shameless waitress has just called her "miss" with the same impudence with which she previously called her “pretty”. But, thinking about the naturalness with which she speaks to her and with which she moves behind the bar, it must be a common treatment at The First Drop, or perhaps it’s something exclusive in her way of working and she is simply giving it more thought those that should be to the matter. For a moment, she feels as fucking stupid as she does every time she tries to socialize with someone that is not Jayce. She interlaces her fingers on the bar counter and squeezes hard instinctively, feeling the skin of his gloves as stiff as her own back at the moment. She has to tell her. She must do it.

“Something else?”

The waitress's voice jolts her out of her self-destructive musings and she forces herself to look into her eyes again.

Is she ignoring her?

Maybe that's it.

It has to be a joke.

It hasn't been that long, has it?

If she counts to three, she can do it; she can say it, or maybe she has to do it to four...

“Are you okey?” the waitress asks her.

Although this is out of place for a worker and Vi knows it perfectly, she feels obliged to figure out a little more after her strange reaction. The piltie doesn't look comfortable here.

The girl from Zaun looks to the foreign eyes almost by inertia and, in the expression on her face, she seems to glimpse a sign of concern when their gazes meet again; a face that, in one way or another, seems familiar to Vi.

The client tenses in her place as if a stake had been driven into her back. Her insecure expression from minutes before is transformed into a mask of haughty disdain and, recomposing her usual upright posture, she takes the glass of water with one hand and brings it to her lips, ready to empty its contents in a single gulp just before pronounce:

“Can't I drink water without being judged?”

The tone is shrewd and even acidic, nothing compares with the shy intervention that she had previously asked for a water in a low voice and Vi detects it more than enough. She analyzes her from top to bottom, taking a quick glance at her in an attempt to decipher why she has come. It's time for the free open bar, she shows up to order her a glass of water without even being sure about it... and now she talks to her like someone spits on a doormat? Who the hell does this mongoose-looking chick who won't stop looking at her think she is? The First Drop is not an exhibition with zaunites to be mocked when leaving a crystal palace on the other side of the bridge.

Everyone does it out of habit since the war ended, but Vi can't stand those from Piltover who think they are above the Zaun people, she never has and never will. This rude lady will be no exception if her attitude doesn't change, and she certainly isn't willing to sit back and wait for that to happen; she has work to do.

“Who is judging who?” she blurts out point blank and without any filter. She removes the rag from her shoulder and shakes it against the bar as she steps away to examine the remains of the punch bowl.

Caitlyn's chest empties in a matter of seconds. She bites her lower lip again, with nervous self-doubt, and drums her fingers on the glassy side of the glass of water —now practically empty— as a personal lament. It hasn't been that many years. It's remotely impossible that I haven't connected the dots just like she has, right?

Right?

But maybe it wasn't the best idea.

Maybe she should let her be.

Because maybe she doesn't want to remember.

And the best thing would be to return with her parents and go home.

Right…?

She can't have forgotten her.

.

.

.

Vi snorts when she has to go back to the customer from before to pick up the glass of water that, apparently, has finally finished. She, of course, as polite as she can, offers her the best solution for everyone, the option that Vander or even Silco would surely also opt for: inviting her to leave before the piltie's occasional impertinence becomes a something worse; it wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened to them.

"If you're not going to order anything else..." she begins while taking the empty glass bottle from her with the speed of lightning, without even looking at her face.

“Violet.”

But the pronunciation of her complete name stops her in her tracks. She raises her head and looks at the young woman in shock. The eyes that look at her on the other side of the bar now do not show contempt or indifference, just as they did at the beginning of the night, between lights and shadows, between loose images of a hospital that swirl in her consciousness without being able to remedy it.

"…you really don't remember me?"

And Vi does remember that way of looking at her, that glow of sorrowful interest and genuine tenderness that still remains engraved in the most obtuse and fleeting images of her mind, those that she tries so hard to rescue when nightmares wake her up at dawn and by which other times lets herself go until she faints from grief on the nights when she cannot sleep.

Fleeting events overflow the corners of her mind like a torrent of watercolor scenes that follow one after another.

It only takes a matter of seconds.

There's not even time to breathe.

You look ahead and then you see all clearly.

There they are.

The hospital gowns.

The air is no longer contaminated with dust and dirt.

The emptiness has stopped echoing in your ears and in the depths of your chest.

Your throat feels dry from the mask.

But the most wonderful thing in the world is still there: her.

She needs a couple of minutes to recover from the metaphorical apoplexy as she looks into her eyes without a single word, without being able to syllable even a simple meaningful response; the noise of the pulse machine and the drip, the explosion, the out-of-context conversations of the doctors and the white light bathing the walls of a hospital room are the perfect setting to remember the girl who smiles at her from the corner of the room with a book in her hands and swinging her legs from the high chair in which they have allowed her to sit this time while they docs changes the medication in her drip.

Only when she is able to move her lips to pronounce the exact name, the one she has been thinking about for —certainly more than four seconds— the reality outrun Vi and her own reaction before she can even articulate it: her name, that is, she remembers now.

“Cait, you’re here!”

Someone shouts it loud and clear. And the eyes of the Piltover woman move away from hers to look for who is claiming her from a distance. It expresses confirmation for the suspicions of a Vi who still remains dazed behind the bar.

Because perhaps the four seconds that the explosion lasted were never enough to remember her then or now, and the words get stuck in her throat when the voice of the young man who approaches limping returns to her the evidence that she was having such a hard time rescuing from her consciousness before achieving it by own inertia.

«”Cait”, of course; that’s it… Her name was Caitlyn.»