Chapter Text
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Caitlyn can already tell it’s going to be a long day.
She’s still in bed, nestled warmly under several layers of blankets and listening to the pouring rain thrum steadily against her bedroom window. She hadn’t slept well, but that’s nothing new. She hardly ever sleeps well these days. Her nights are fitful and long, and she often spends them not in bed at all, but hunched over her desk and working steadily to keep her mind from what she’d rather not think about. Sleep is an elusive concept, slipping through her fingers like wisps of smoke, only deigning to grace her with a few uninterrupted hours here and there.
She can’t remember the last time she had a full night’s sleep. Before her mother died, most likely. Before her world was shattered and flipped upside down, before she became someone she herself didn’t even recognize. Before she won, but lost more than she ever gained.
The lack of sleep isn’t what will make today long, however. She’s become acclimated to running on only a few hours sleep, and while it’s perhaps not the most healthy thing, she can manage just fine. Today, however, she can feel a bone-deep exhaustion settled over her body, making her want to do nothing but fall back asleep. Her throat hurts too, burning with sharp pain every time she swallows, and she can feel a prickle in her sinuses and ears that heralds upcoming congestion.
She’s well on her way to getting sick, much to her dismay.
Caitlyn despises being sick. Not only does she dislike it when anything in her life feels out of her control, but she also hates looking weak. She prides herself on being hardworking and dedicated to her position as sheriff, and she feels she’s been able to do a lot of good in the time since the war. But colds always leave her head fuzzy and mind sluggish, slowing her down and making her feel less capable than she would like.
A smaller, gentler part of her wants to admit that she’s only human after all, but Caitlyn doesn’t want to allow such indulgences. She has a job to do and she will do it. If there’s one thing Caitlyn never wants to be, it’s lazy
So she gathers her energy and drags herself out of bed, wrapping her silk robe tightly around herself in an attempt to ward off the midwinter chill, and heads to her bathroom to start getting ready for the day.
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Caitlyn sighs softly as she sips on a cup of strong tea. She hasn’t even left for work yet and she’s already dreading the day ahead. A long, hot shower had helped soothe her aching muscles, but she still has a raw throat and a runny nose.
Propping her head up on one hand, she gazes pensively out the kitchen windows toward the expansive gardens of the estate. The rain hasn’t let up in the slightest, turning the world outside gray and wet. It’s certainly not the sort of weather she wants to be out and about in with a burgeoning illness.
She has half a mind to cancel her obligations for the day and stay in tending to her cold. But the prospect of spending a dreary, rainy day in this mansion sick and alone, makes something sad twist in her gut. No, she’ll work, she prefers to stay occupied anyway, and she’ll just have to be careful to keep her germs to herself.
Maybe she should get a pet, Caitlyn muses, as she sips at her tea and half-heartedly nibbles on a piece of toast. Not a cat – she’s never been fond of them – but a dog could suffice. A friendly face to see when she comes home at night, instead of empty hallways and portraits with lifeless eyes.
The Kiramman Estate has never felt so cold and lonely to her before. It’s not that she’s completely alone – there still is the staff, but they keep to themselves mostly, and her father is here sometimes. Although, these days he spends most of his time out in the forested seclusion of their vacation home, doing gods knows what. But even when he is here, he’s nothing like the jovial, friendly man she once knew. Her mother’s death shattered them both. But while Caitlyn has been able to pick up some of the pieces, it seems that the passing of Cassandra broke her father in a way that time could never repair.
And then there was Vi, of course. Caitlyn’s heart aches faintly as she thinks of her. When Vi was here, the house felt warm again. That is, until they started arguing, and the distance between them grew too wide to traverse. Until it became clear that Vi’s heart truly lay with her sister, and that Caitlyn didn’t have it in her to forgive Jinx. Not after what she took from her. And so Vi chose Jinx, as Caitlyn always knew she would, and left to go find her. Rumors were circulating about a blue-haired girl in Demacia, and Vi couldn’t rest until she knew for sure if her sister was still alive.
Caitlyn understood, as much as it broke her heart to watch her leave. They were never going to work, not really – not after how much they both had become battered and broken.
And so here Caitlyn was, alone on a miserable rainy day, sniffling into a lukewarm cup of tea, and all around feeling much more sorry for herself than she would care to admit.
Eventually though, her need to stay on schedule overpowers her melancholy. She clears away the dishes and grabs some handkerchiefs and an umbrella, steeling herself for the long day ahead.
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Caitlyn is early for the council meeting, which is intentional. She’s a firm believer that ‘ten minutes early is on time, and on time is late’, a refrain that was ingrained upon her from an early age by her steadfastly punctual mother. Like most things her mother taught her, she rebelled against it as a child, but now finds herself clinging to old habits – wisps of her mother still with her even now.
Only Mel is in the council chambers when Caitlyn arrives, lounging in her high-backed council chair while sipping a cup of tea. She’s wearing a black, silky dress with a slit up the thigh so high that Caitlyn has to consciously tear her gaze away from the sliver of exposed brown skin.
“Hm. It’s ten ‘till, I almost wondered if you’d be late,” Mel says, a friendly smirk playing on her rosy lips. “Wouldn’t that be a sight to see?”
“When have you known me to ever be late?” Caitlyn grins, coming over and slipping into the chair next to Mel. “A Kiramman is never late.”
“Ah, so you were raised with the same admonition,” Mel laughs softly, shaking her head and taking another sip of tea. “A Medarda is never late, a Medarda never apologizes, a Medarda never –”
“–bemoans the rules of being a Medarda?” Caitlyn guesses, and Mel chuckles again at that.
“Don’t go giving my mother ideas.”
“Well, rest easy knowing she is in Noxus, then.” Caitlyn says, a hint of seriousness dropping into her tone.
“We can all rest easier knowing that.” Mel glances away, but not before Caitlyn sees the flash of sadness in her emerald green eyes.
The war had taken a toll on them all, perhaps none more so than Mel, who had to fight her own mother until the bitter end. It had almost seemed that the Noxian leader wouldn’t survive her injuries, but Ambessa’s powerful will prevailed once more, and she returned to Noxus once she was recovered. Her connection to Mel, and Piltover, however, was irreconcilably severed.
Mel had chosen to stay in Piltover and continue to serve on the council, and has proved instrumental in the efforts to improve life for Piltover’s citizens, especially those in the undercity. Although Caitlyn abdicated her family’s seat on the council to Zaun, she still attends council meetings quite regularly due to her role as sheriff, in order to keep the council members well-apprised of the activities of the now-reformed enforcers.
Mel has become something of a friend to Caitlyn in the intervening time, a bond developing between them based in no small part of their shared upbringing, and – Caitlyn would suspect – their shared loneliness. Surviving such things as they have, the ten-year age difference between them seems less than relevant now. Caitlyn finds herself seeing Mel as less of a mentor, as she did when she was young, and more of an ally and confidante now.
A sharp tickle in her nose brings Caitlyn back to the present, and she hastily reaches into her uniform jacket for her handkerchief. She sneezes twice, more loudly than she would prefer, and resists the urge to groan afterward at the pounding in her head.
“Excuse me,” Caitlyn mutters, feeling a slight heat rise to her cheeks, as she finishes cleaning her nose and turns back to face the woman beside her.
“Bless you!” Mel exclaims, her delicate eyebrows raised. “Goodness, are you quite well, Caitlyn?”
“Just the weather bothering my nose.” Caitlyn waves her concern away, but Mel doesn’t seem deterred, instead studying her with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.
“You sound like you’re ill,” Mel tuts, pushing back from the table and standing smoothly. “I’ll make you a tea.”
“Oh, you really don’t have to–” Caitlyn starts to protest, looking up at Mel through the watery eye not covered by her eyepatch, but Mel just gives her a firm look.
“Of course I do. Be right back, darling.”
Mel clicks out of the room in her heels, leaving Caitlyn wondering why the term ‘darling’ just made her heart do an odd sort of swoop in her chest.
Mel returns with a steaming cup of chamomile tea in a few short minutes, and the other council members start trickling in after that. The warm tea feels heavenly on Caitlyn’s scratchy throat, providing some temporary relief for her growing symptoms.
But much to her dismay, her cold does nothing but worsen as the meeting progresses, her congestion increasing, leaving her throat burning and her head pounding.
To their credit, the other councilors politely ignore her very obvious illness, much to Caitlyn’s relief. But out of the corner of her eye, she can see Mel glancing at her now and then, her eyebrows furrowed.
When Caitlyn dissolves into a poorly-conceled coughing fit, bending over slightly in her chair with the force of it, Mel leans in and quietly asks if she’s alright, worry in her eyes.
“I’m fine,” Caitlyn mumbles once her lungs have stopped spasming, although she truly is anything but. She can’t remember the last time she had such a horrible cold, and in public, of all things.
“Of course, you sound perfectly healthy,” Mel replies drily, giving Caitlyn a frank look. “Truly, Caitlyn, you should head home and straight to bed after this meeting. I can tell you’re miserable.”
“It sounds worse than it is.” Caitlyn pinches the bridge of her nose, giving a quiet, congested, sigh as she tries to massage away the awful combination between sinus headache and migraine that seems to be brewing in her head. “I’ll be alright.”
Mel gives her a look that clearly conveys her disbelief, but then the meeting moves on to the next agenda item, and it’s Caitlyn's turn to speak.
Thankfully, the report she needs to give is brief, and she manages to make it through without coughing. Her voice is quickly becoming hoarse though, and by the time she finishes speaking and sits back down, she begrudgingly faces the fact that she probably will need to spend the rest of the day working from home. No one will be able to understand her at the precinct anyway, and with how awful this cold is, she’d rather not risk infecting her entire staff of enforcers with it.
When the meeting finally wraps up, Caitlyn gives a sigh of relief. Her head is pounding and her nose is completely stuffed up, and she wants nothing more than to take a hot shower and crawl into bed. She doesn’t know how this bug managed to worsen so quickly, but it’s awful enough that she’s willing to admit defeat and head home.
As the other council members gather their things and start heading out, Mel turns to Caitlyn. Her face is full of sympathetic concern, and Caitlyn finds her stomach fluttering against her will.
“Will you be alright to get home?” Mel asks, tilting her head to the side. “I could accompany you, if you need.”
“No, that’s quite alright,” Caitlyn gives Mel a reassuring smile, touched by her concern. Although she usually doesn’t take well to others fussing over her health, she finds she doesn’t mind it quite so much, coming from Mel. “It’s just a rotten head cold. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, do take care of yourself, Caitlyn,” Mel says, putting a gentle hand to Caitlyn’s shoulder. “Lots of tea and rest for you.”
“Thank you, Mel.” Caitlyn, despite not being the biggest fan of public displays of physical affection, feels a sudden urge to pull the slightly shorter woman into her arms. She settles for giving her hand a quick squeeze instead. “I appreciate your concern.”
“I’ve come to value your companionship,” Mel admits, shuffling her papers and tapping them into a neat stack. Caitlyn isn’t quite sure, but she thinks she can see a hint of a flush to Mel’s cheeks.
“As do I,” Caitlyn murmurs, and there’s more truth to that statement than she would care to admit.
Caitlyn treks home in the rain, kept dry under her large umbrella. Somehow, the pit of loneliness she woke up with doesn’t feel quite as deep any longer.
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The following morning, Caitlyn is determined to go into work. After the council meeting yesterday, she spent the rest of the day in bed, catching up on paperwork. She got less work done than she would like, exhausted as she was, and she wants to make up for it today. A whole day of rest is a day more than she would usually take. It should be plenty to have her back on her feet by now.
Her body, however, does not seem to be quite on the same page.
The runny nose she was fighting yesterday has transitioned into fully blocked sinuses. Her voice is hoarse and miserably stuffed up, not at all helped by her continued scratchy throat.
A glance in the bathroom mirror confirms that she looks nearly as sick as she feels. Her nose is flushed and irritated from the abuse. She’s also much paler than usual, and her lips are dry and cracked from breathing through her mouth all night.
She takes her time in the shower, hoping the hot steam will help loosen the congestion in her head. Her eucalyptus and tea tree oil shampoo tingles pleasantly on her scalp as she works it into a lather, the calming aroma filling the steamy washroom.
As she showers, Caitlyn’s mind drifts to Mel. As embarrassing as it had been for the mage to see her in such a state yesterday, she has to admit there was a small part of her that was touched by Mel’s care. So much of Caitlyn’s life now revolves around work and the fate of Piltover and Zaun. It’s been so long since she had someone to care for her and to care for in return – not that she has even been desiring it.
But Mel’s soft touch yesterday, the lingering warmth of her mossy green eyes…had somehow felt like everything.
Caitlyn isn’t sure what to make of it all, however. She’s had her heart broken and broken hearts, and she’s not sure if she’s up for another romantic entanglement. Perhaps it was just a fleeting moment of connection, borne out of loneliness and sickness, nothing more. She has many other things she could be dwelling on.
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“Sheriff, we’re getting reports of a skirmish on the Bridge of Progress,” says Sergeant Fischer, one of the lead enforcers. The solidly built woman stands ram-rod straight in the doorway of Caitlyn’s office, hands clasped behind her back as she awaits Caitlyn’s orders.
Caitlyn resists the urge to groan. Of course it’s today, when she’s not feeling her best, that she’s been fielding non-stop calls from across the city. She sets down the paperwork she had been reviewing, thinking before responding. Even sick as she is, she carefully considers the best response, which officers to send, and all possible repercussions of potential actions.
“Take Officers Farley and Medina with you. De-escalatory actions only. Radio in for backup if you need it. Understood?” Caitlyn orders, and the sergeant nods.
“Understood, Sheriff.” Fischer turns on her heel and marches out of her office.
Usually Caitlyn doesn’t mind giving orders and sorting out the various conflicts that her police force is responsible for handling. But today she’s got a persistent headache that seems well on the way to becoming a migraine, her congestion has returned with a vengeance, and now she’s developing a cough on top of it all.
Taking a handkerchief off the stack on the desk next to her, Caitlyn gives her nose a hard blow, not concerned about propriety in the seclusion of her office. But then she curls forward with a series of harsh sneezes that are throat-scraping and loud. She groans afterward, exhausted.
“Bless you,” says a soft voice, and Caitlyn snaps her head up, startled.
Mel Medarda is standing in the doorway of her office, looking unfairly pretty in another one of her perfectly fitted dresses, hair piled on top of her head in an intricate style.
“Oh, um...” Caitlyn tries to clear her voice, coughing into her fist. She can already feel her cheeks reddening at the embarrassingly thick sound of her voice, and also the fact that Mel witnessed her in a moment of discomposure, yet again. Caitlyn blinks a few times and rubs at her temples. “Thank you. What’re you doing here?”
Her head feels so stuffed and woozy, she’s having trouble keeping things straight. Did she forget she had a meeting with the councilmember? She can’t think of any other reason Mel would be at police headquarters, it’s far from usual to see her here.
“Oh, Caitlyn. You sound awful.” Mel’s face drops as soon as Caitlyn speaks, her eyebrows tugging together and a look of soft concern in her eyes. She steps further into the room, coming over to the desk and perching on the side of it. “Didn’t I tell you to go home and rest?”
“I did rest,” Caitlyn sighs, sniffling again. “Yesterday. I have work to do.”
“You need to take care of that cold,” Mel chastises lightly, her golden-green eyes sweeping over Caitlyn’s hunched form, lingering on her face. Caitlyn’s cheeks feel warm again. “You sound even worse than you did yesterday.”
“I appreciate your concern, Mel,” Caitlyn says diplomatically, her tone slipping into the even, measured one she uses at work. “But I’ll be fine. It’s just a cold.”
Mel, still perched on the side of her desk, rolls her eyes briefly. “Has anyone ever told you you’re incredibly stubborn?”
Caitlyn tilts her head, lips quirking up in a small smile. “Perhaps once or twice.”
Mel smiles back at her, giving her a knowing look.
Silence stretches for a few moments, and Caitlyn steadfastly keeps her eye on Mel’s face, not the deep v in her dress that exposes her chest.
Caitlyn coughs lightly, clearing her throat afterward. “Sorry, did you need something Mel? I don’t recall us having an appointment.”
“Oh – yes,” Mel shakes her head, and holds up a small paper bag that Caitlyn hadn’t noticed before. “Call it a hunch. I thought you might need a few things today.”
Taking the bag curiously, Caitlyn opens it to see a bottle of cold medicine, a packet of throat lozenges, and box of tea from the best tea shop in Piltover, along with a stack of white handkerchiefs tied up with a navy blue ribbon.
“I figured you would be working, even as ill as you are,” Mel shrugs, nodding toward the bag. “So I stopped by the apothecary for supplies.”
Caitlyn swallows hard past a sudden surge of emotion in her chest. Somehow, this feels like the nicest thing anyone has done for her in a long, long time.
“Mel – that’s –” Caitlyn trips over her words, then shakes her head to clear it, looking back up at the woman next to her. “Thank you.”
“Of course, darling,” Mel smiles, laying her hand on top of Caitlyn’s and Caitlyn’s heart does that same funny thing it does whenever Mel touches her. “Someone ought to look after you, after all.”
“I can look after myself,” Caitlyn says automatically, and Mel chuckles softly.
“Yes, well. I suppose it couldn’t hurt either of us to have a little help, now and then.”
“I suppose not,” Caitlyn echoes softly, her heart full.
“I do hope you feel better soon.” Mel gives her hand another squeeze, then slips off the desk, smoothing her dress down. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
As she turns to head out the door, Caitlyn feels a sudden longing tug in her chest. “Wait!” she calls, before she can think better of it.
“Yes?” Mel turns, raising a curious, elegant eyebrow.
“You’ve been so kind. Let me repay the favor. Dinner, tonight? I’ll have my cook prepare it, of course, so I don’t share any germs.” Caitlyn offers, blushing a little. She’s being silly, she knows – why would Mel want to spend any more time around her in this state?
“Oh.” A brief look of surprise flits across Mel’s face. “But you should be resting, not entertaining.”
“I’d much rather have company than wallow in self-pity all evening,” Caitlyn says honestly. “Unless you’d rather not be exposed, which is perfectly understandable. In fact, you probably should stay away, this thing is awful.”
“So are you inviting me over or not?” Mel teases, a playful grin on her lips.
Caitlyn swears she’s never blushed this much in her life. “I am. If you would like to, and if you don’t mind my cold,” she clarifies, trying to sound more confident than she feels.
“I don’t mind,” Mel says softly. “Seven?”
“Seven,” Caitlyn nods, her stomach fluttering.
“See you then,” Mel smiles, and slips out the door before Caitlyn even manages to catch her breath.
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