Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Jayce,

Part of me feels foolish for writing this letter. You’ve been unconscious for two weeks now, your face still stuck in the grimace of a violent nightmare, and the doctors say that your chances of waking grow slimmer every day. But I have never let myself fall into the grasp of pessimism, even when all hope has seemed lost, and I will not break that streak by losing my faith in you, of all people. Alas, I can no longer put off leaving in the hopes of witnessing your recovery, if indeed it ever comes.

If you are reading this, then you may already know that my destiny has taken me away from Piltover, and back to my birthplace in Rokrund, Noxus. My mother gave us no choice but to bring about her end, leaving me to inherit charge of her warbands and our household. So I must leave and take my place at the head of the Medarda clan, even as I long to stay in the comfort of this beautiful city that I’ve called home for most of my life now. Even as I long to stay at your side and pray alongside your mother that you wake once again.

There is so much I wish to say to you—that I should have said, when we still had time. That we ran out before I ever got to speak on the truth of my feelings for you will always haunt me, so if there is even the smallest of chances that you might wake and be able to hear my words again through this letter, I have to take it.

First and foremost, I am sorry. I had struggled to see why you were so angry with me when we finally reunited after so many months apart, partly because my mind had been, and still is, to some degree, elsewhere—somewhere far away, that I pray you will never reach. But while preparing to leave Piltover, I’ve had the chance to reflect on all I’ve accomplished in this city, and the mark I have left on its people, including you.

It is true that Hextech, and by extension, you and Viktor, were investments, ones I made out of a desire to make our city really shine with innovation. I was tired of Heimerdinger’s Council always having to play it safe. I wanted higher risk for higher reward, and Hextech promised and delivered exactly that. It was only after we were all embroiled in the thrill of your innovation that I began to see past the shining potential of your brilliant mind, and into the gentle soul that had always been there.

I really did want you the night we slept together, I hope you never doubted that. But it was only afterwards that I believe what I felt for you truly started to bloom into real affection, and I saw you as not just a partner to work towards goals with, but a kindred soul I could reveal my genuine self to. The next morning, you confided in me about your feeling of helplessness in Viktor’s health, and only then did I really understand that there was no underlying reason that you had done all you had, no ulterior motives of fame and fortune. The vision you carried for Hextech from the very start was simply to help people, and that was all there was. You felt so deeply the troubles of others, and wanted to ease their suffering with something that once eased yours.

I had spent my political career building up my walls, guarding my heart after being cast out by those I loved most. The typical elite are scarcely ones to be trusted with your innermost thoughts and feelings, lest they use it against you to their own ends. But in that one instant where you confided in me, open and honest and vulnerable, you melted me. You trusted me to hold your heart when it was hurting, and for the first time in so long, made me feel like I could do the same.

You are a wonderful man, Jayce Talis. Kind, gentle, inspiring, innovative, confident, and endlessly loving. Even when you faltered, when war stood on our doorstep, I know you only did what you felt you had to do to protect your people—the people I had put you in charge of. I thought giving you full control over your Hextech endeavours would further both of our ambitions, but I now see that your heart could have never given itself to the endless scheming of politics. You were made to be genuine, an open book.

If you think any of this, or my opinion of you, has changed because of what you went through in that other world—the future we barely escaped ourselves—you’re wrong. You were angry, and you were scared, and you were forced to do things you never imagined you would have to. But through it all, I could still feel your warmth, your gentleness. Should you wake, in a Piltover that is hopefully more peaceful than either of us has left it, I hope you will no longer have to keep that hardened shell that you’d grown to protect us. Let yourself expose your fragility, and weakness, and feel how you are embraced by the many that truly love you. There are more than you could ever possibly know.

In truth I feel lost without you now. Elora was killed before the both of us disappeared, my only true friend throughout all my struggles. Now I have no one, not one person on this earth who really knows or understands me. Mother might’ve called that a lack of weaknesses to exploit, but even she had her loyal confidants in Rictus, my father, and her lover, so I cannot even justify this emptiness with military gain.

In all my years dreaming of becoming an heir worthy of her, I never could’ve fathomed that this is how it would come about. I suppose I should’ve known better—she would never rest until she knew our legacy would be secure without her, and in her eyes, this must’ve been the only way to make that happen: forcing me to embody the wolf she so adamantly admired, moulding me in her own image into something unrecognisable to myself.

What kind of woman kills her own family—her own mother? The one who carried me in her womb, fought through hell to bring me into the world, sacrificed everything to keep me safe? I know what you would say, what any reasonable person might: that she would. She, who had killed countless cousins to secure her place as head of our family; she, who was forced to choose to save my life over my brother’s; she, who very well could have taken my life away in that final battle.

And I know. Gods above, I know. But I never wanted to be just like her—I wanted to be greater. Kinder. More compassionate. I wonder now, as I prepare to enter the wolves den that is Noxus, if it is too late for me—if I can possibly retain any part of my old self, the self that I spent so long building up in Piltover, the self that has been forever touched by your sweet influence, in a place that continues to thrive through violence and brutal expansion. We were so close to giving the Undercity its liberation, and now I’m headed to a nation that would spit on the very idea. Will I survive a day, if I do not bend and break to the will of the violent? Or will my family’s legacy and influence be enough for me to stand on my own, and shape my own path? You told me that I could never be controlled. I wonder if you’d still believe it, if you saw me leave our city aboard a warship.

I’m not the only one now forever shaped by the impossible decisions we made at war. Caitlyn’s partner has lost her entire family. Even after everything her sister had done to us, I still mourn for her. They fought together, in the end—now I can only imagine a reconciliation like that with my own family in my wildest dreams. And Caitlyn herself, I’ve heard, struggled heavily with the burdens of leadership while we were gone, much as you did. She now clambers to make up for this, even when she is supposed to be resting for her injuries. I think the guilt eats at her even still, but her determination to change for the better in spite of the growing pressure of her house gives me hope that I won’t have to lose myself to the ways of warmongering after all.

And, because I know you will wonder, though I doubt I will be the first to tell you, Viktor is alive. He is once again human, and deeply scarred, and has been taken to Stillwater. I was personally asked to assess him in his interrogations, to make certain that his connection to the arcane is severed. But besides still struggling to harness the full potential of my own powers, I could not bear to stay in his presence long. Those vacant eyes that used to be filled with such passion, a soul crushed by the weight of hundreds of lives lost—it was all too much for me. I don’t know what is going to happen to him when I’m gone, but in spite of it all, I hope he finds peace, somehow.

I know you loved him, in whatever way you’re willing to admit. You likely still do, and always will, even if you can’t forgive him for what he’s done. Forgiveness is a vast and complex entity, one I will have to grapple with myself as I reconnect with my estranged roots and learn more about my mother’s past. Whatever you decide, I hope you do so without shame or regret—you deserve happiness, above all else.

I’m simply buying time, now. Trying desperately to think of a million more things that I’ve always wanted you to hear, because I know that when I sign this letter, it may be the last thing I ever say to you. But the warbands will not wait any longer—I know they already mistrust me, in spite of their insistence on loyalty to the Medarda name. I killed their general in front of them, and displayed a willingness to harness dark magic they could not even fathom, so I suppose they cannot be blamed for the hesitance in their hearts. The trust of Piltover was hard-earned, but Noxians will be a whole different beast, especially if I cannot live up to my mother’s image—if I cannot carry on our legacy, like she long suspected I couldn’t.

You once asked if I agreed with that sentiment. At the time I did, disheartening as it was. And despite my mother’s parting words, I still agree with it, only now it is not out of despair, but instead out of hope. I’ll never be her standard of a Medarda, and I never want to be. It will be an arduous, and even dangerous journey, but if I’m going to continue pursuing our visions of a better world, then I mustn’t let go of what I believe in. For the Piltover we saw in our dreams. For my brother. For Elora. For you.

Gods, I will miss you. I miss you even now, when we are still in the same city. I will never forgive you, nor myself, if you do not wake up, but… it is time for me to go, now. I must move on if I am to survive, if I am to truly live again. Maybe even love again, in a long distant future. But I will never forget you, Jayce. You have left a mark on me that gleams brighter than any gold. Thank you, for everything.

Your once-love,

Mel

Chapter Text

Jayce’s hospital room is aglow with golden light when Caitlyn enters; late-afternoon sunlight bounces through the window, yellow chrysanthemums lit by the warm lamp bloom on his bedside table, and of course, a woman painted in gold tattoos sits at his side, tracing patterns on his limp hand with her fingertips. Caitlyn feels like a dark splotch by comparison, with her navy uniform and her sickly-pale skin—she should still be abed, she knows, but all of her wounds have closed, except for this one. 

Mel doesn’t stir when she closes the door behind her, but she gives a warm smile when she pulls up a chair to sit down next to her. “You look better,” she offers, before turning back to face Jayce. “I don’t suppose you can spare any of that healing energy?” Her voice is soft, as if her volume could somehow stir the sleeping man; if that were the case, Caitlyn would come here just to scream every day.

“So many people wielding magic these days,” she says instead. “Have you lost track of who can’t?”

The corners of her eyes crinkle, but Mel doesn’t laugh; she doesn’t say anything, just continues her machinations atop Jayce’s hand. Logically, she knows it’s limp, but something about the curl of his knuckles, combined with the wrinkles between his eyebrows, conjures the image of a tense, angry man; a man preparing for war, a man begging a room of people for help they’d never give, a man forced to fight a god possessing the husk of his greatest friend.

Caitlyn looks at the floor. “You’re still leaving tomorrow?” she asks, quietly.

Mel nods. “Mother’s warbands are anxious to return home. They know they’re only being tolerated on these shores… best not to make them wait any longer.”

Caitlyn wouldn’t admit it here, but it’s true; the sight of those boats still floating in their shores is a blight on the harbour. Whoever designed them knew exactly what they were representing. But Mel… even dressed in black and wrapped in that red shawl, she doesn’t embody it in the slightest. It feels wrong, for their departure to signal hers as well.

“And you?” she asks her, carefully. “Do you… want to leave?”

The question seems to stump her. “I…” Her hand pauses on Jayce’s, her eyes cast low as she conjures her thoughts. “Ever since I arrived in this city, all I’ve wanted is to be welcomed home again. And now that I have it… I don’t even know who will be there when I return; all I know is that it won’t be who I’d dreamed it would be.” She takes a breath through her nose, and her posture corrects itself. “But I have a duty to serve my family. I cannot abandon them on the brink of destruction.”

If the Medardas hailed from Piltover, Caitlyn would scoff at the dramatics of it all, just as she did whenever her mother chided her for risking their family’s “destruction” in her every action—as if joining a force that they funded could somehow kill two-hundred years of influence. But that sentiment likely rings very literally in a place like Noxus. Can dreams of helping people really do so much damage there?

The weight of this great burden seems to slip from Mel’s shoulders as she looks back down over Jayce’s face and finds her smile again. “I will miss this, though. I’ve called Piltover home for most of my life, now. It’s such a beautiful city… I wish I had appreciated it more while I still had time.”

The tips of her fingers curl around Jayce’s. Caitlyn’s curl around the edge of her seat. “So long as we’re still alive, there will always be time.”

Strange, that that is what prompts her to pull away from Jayce, her hands lowering to clasp together in her lap. “And what will you do, with all the time you still have?”

With all the time that’s been shoved into her lap, in the role her mother dropped on her head from above? Who the hell knows. She spent all her time as Piltover’s martial leader longing for the future to come, but had never once pictured what it would actually look like when normalcy returned. How could she have, without her family—without Vi? “I don’t know. I don’t think any plans can be made until the Council is re-established.”

Mel hums a neutral tune. “Shoola did say you refused your mother’s seat.”

Shoola, the poor woman, having to piece their government back together all on her own; not a fantastic bunch left to choose from, either. She’d nearly begged Caitlyn to take a seat at the table, but… well, she may have been out of her depth leading on her own, but there’s no way she could handle having to co-rule with those lazy bastards.

“I’ve never been strong in ceremonial positions—or won an argument, really,” Caitlyn admits. “I’d be terrible in a debate.” It’s something people are still struggling to grasp, that Vi is the better speaker of the two of them; the bright side of their preconceived ideas being that they’ll always be caught by surprise when Vi is the one negotiating and Caitlyn is the one shooting at their feet.

The neutrality of Mel’s facade finally drops a little at that, an amused smile pulling at her lips. “I was under the impression that you winning arguments was quite the thorn in your mother’s side.”

Something akin to warmth blooms inside Caitlyn’s chest; no one so casually brings up her mother anymore, not unless they’re trying to shame her. “It was more the actions that caused those arguments. She’d never leave it alone without having the last word.” Which is why she had to die in the middle of a meeting.

Mel chuckles lightly, like a chime in the breeze. “Mothers never do.” While her words are fond, the sadness in her eyes tells a different story.

It’s a terrible thing, to realise too late how much you have in common with someone. Had they been able to connect sooner, a lot of strife might have been avoided for both of them. Perhaps Caitlyn should’ve taken her mother’s insistence that she connect with the other councillors more seriously… but how was she to know that only one out of six wasn’t a complete cow? That’s the same odds of being shot in reaver roulette.

Had they ever had a one-on-one conversation before it all went to shit? The earliest she can think of is… in the Council chambers, staring at her mother’s broken seat. Mel provided what had felt like real comfort at the time, but was it really? Perhaps now, loose and vulnerable as they sit vigil over a man they both love, she’ll see the earnest face of more than one person.

“Did you mean what you said,” Caitlyn asks, “when you told me she was a good woman?”

Mel takes a breath, her eyes skating across the room. “She was an excellent politician, and she cared deeply for Piltover.”

“But was she good?”

She sighs and looks down at her lap, her gaze contemplative before she finds her resolve. “That is up to each of us to decide for ourselves. I was never a victim of… well, us, so I cannot speak to that. What I do know from experience, is that the love we feel for our parents is rooted so deeply inside of our souls, that even their most heinous acts struggle to shake it.” She looks up again and catches Caitlyn’s eye. “Whether or not your feelings toward her change, you should not feel guilty either way. No one can tell you how you should feel, not even yourself.”

Caitlyn deflates, all the tension exiting her body with the breath in her lungs. Is this what counsel is supposed to feel like? She hasn’t felt this open to it since Sheriff Grayson’s death. “I wish I had fallen under your guidance, instead of your mother’s,” she laments. “I’m sure it would’ve saved everyone a lot of pain, if I could handle things the way you can.”

Mel’s warm smile returns, and she reaches over to hold Caitlyn’s hand in hers. “So long as we’re still alive,” she reminds her. “I’d be more than happy to receive a letter from you, if you need anything at all. Even just to talk.”

Caitlyn’s fingers curl around Mel’s entirely on their own, as far as she can tell; the rest of her body is frozen in place, stuck staring into the fire’s last flames before it’s put out and she’s left alone in the cold. “I would like that,” she wills herself to utter.

Mel nods, before a frown pulls at her smile. “Speaking of which…” Using her free hand, thankfully, she reaches into her pouch and pulls out an envelope, closed with her sigil pressed into black and blue wax. “If…” she takes a breath, “when he wakes up… will you give this to him?”

Caitlyn reaches for the letter, taking it delicately between her fingers and running her thumb over the soft paper. Her heartbeat is too loud for her to speak, so she nods.

Mel finds her smile again, before regrettably pulling her hand away and standing from her seat. She traces her fingers over Jayce’s face, brushing his hair away from those damning prints on his forehead.

Propriety kicks in, and Caitlyn shoots up from her seat. “Should you like a moment alone?”

“No,” Mel blurts out, a little too fast and a little too loud, before she clears her throat. “I’ve… said all I can say. Thank you, Caitlyn.”

Caitlyn hesitates, gently fiddling with the letter in both hands, but then she bows her head. “I will see you off at the docks tomorrow.”

Mel takes a step towards her and puts her hand on her shoulder, subtly pulling her close. “You should be resting,” she says.

Caitlyn puts a hand over Mel’s. “I will see you off,” she insists.

Through the delicate concern on her face, Mel concedes with a nod, and quietly flits from the room.

Caitlyn stands still, her gaze stuck between the door and the bed, not particularly inclined to look at either. It’s cold in here, and her wound stills bleeds.

Chapter Text

Mel,

I know you said you would never give hope, but I can imagine this letter still comes as somewhat of a surprise. It’s been two weeks since I came to, and I’m stuck exactly where I’ve been for the past three months, still in this bed while they teach me how to live again. My grip strength has finally gotten good enough to write again, although my hands still tremble with the exertion, so I hope you’ll excuse my poor script.

I have to admit, I was disappointed to hear you were already gone when I woke up, but I understand. You have duties, and now I do, too. The second I leave this room, the Council will swoop me up and pick at whatever meat is left on my bones—and being led by a sleeping man for so long has left them especially starved. I miss the professor still, but I have to wonder how similar it feels to having been led by him for all those years.

There’s a lot I wish I could’ve said to you too. Even when we parted ways, there were still so many things I wanted to tell you, and questions I wanted to ask, but our time had to be short. I had to make it count in a way I wouldn’t regret, so my mind could be clear for our final battle. But I guess now we’ve been given back all the time in the world—by the gods, or the arcane, or luck, I don’t know. What I do know is that I will never waste it on something I don’t believe in ever again. I hope, in spite of all that Noxus has to offer, that it can stay that way for you too.

Everyone has had a million questions for me since I woke up, and I can only guess that they’re ones you’d be looking for answers to as well. There’s still a lot I don’t understand about what happened to me, both in the other world and on top of the Hexgates, but I at least want to try to give you the answers you deserve.

The truth is that, when I said we were meant to lose that battle, I believed it wholly, and I did not truly think there would be any changing it. There were things I thought we could do to put off the inevitable, or to give me time for one last chance to get through to Viktor, but it was no surprise to me when I arrived at the event horizon. Whether it was more cruel of me to give you hope rather than to crush it by telling you the truth is up to each of you, I suppose, but I’m sure none of you would’ve given up even if I had begged you to.

I can’t describe exactly what happened when I faced Viktor, or why his plan faltered only in our world where it had succeeded in a hundred others. Something just… shifted. An anomaly that cracked his facade and brought the real him back to me. Until I can finally leave this bed and ask him about it, all I can say as that we experienced a miracle—something that might’ve made me believe in the goodness of magic just as easily as the mage who saved me as a child.

I’m sorry if I’m still not making any sense. Communicating is still… difficult, for me. All the time I spent in that other world, I spent alone—six months, I was told when I returned. It was torture, but it also gave me a lot of time to reflect on things without anyone else’s input or interference, for maybe the first time in my life. I saw a lot of things clearly, then—you, Viktor, Heimerdinger, Piltover, everything. It made me realise a lot about our roles in all of this.

The first thing I realised—made immediately apparent, in a barren, post-war hellscape—is that we failed. We both had dreams of peace and prosperity, and let them fall to the wayside because of ambition and fear. Neither of us could’ve ever lived up to the expectations put on our shoulders—not from Heimerdinger, or your mother, or ourselves, or each other—because we were trying to please everyone, when everyone wanted different things. A real leader should be focused on what the common people need, above all else. At what point did we forget that?

The only time I had ever felt proud to call myself a councillor was petitioning for Zaun’s independence, and that slipped through our fingers as quickly as it was proposed. I still hope for that outcome one day, but for now, they need our aid more than anything. I hope they can build a better future for themselves than we could with the share of your fund I plan to give them. From what I hear of Sevika, she sounds like either the exact kind of leader they need—dedicated, uncompromised, forthright—or the kind of person we both thought we would be when coming into power, before the realities of politics really sank in. I’m choosing to believe in the former, for all our sakes.

I came to a lot of conclusions after that, but when it came to you, what I realised next in all my loneliness was that I had never made it clear why I fell for you. Did you ever wonder, or was it obvious? Either way, I wanted you to know more than anything in that moment, in case I never made it out to tell you myself. So in the name of remedying past regrets, let me do it now:

You were a vision, a picture of elegance and grace, poised and controlled in every situation. You held the whole world in the palm of your hand effortlessly, had everyone wrapped around your finger, falling over themselves to get your attention. You weren’t afraid to take risks, to try new things, or to take chances no one else would even consider. And you empathised with everyone, took all their plights to heart, and tried to come up with solutions that would benefit all of them.

A charming, calculated, efficient leader that embodied everything Piltover should stand for. It was all so obvious to me, and yet I had never said it out loud before. Why hadn’t I? Hadn’t it ever come up?

And what I realised then, after all that time spent longing for you, and regretting everything I never said to you, was that the reason it never came up was because… it didn’t matter. The how had never really mattered to you, so long as you had favourable results, and what we had was no different. Our relationship was supposed to be just another political act, two of the city’s greatest forces combining to further our ambitions together. A hollow attachment with shallow affection.

I grew bitter, in that other world. Bitter, and angry, and so, so hurt. I thought that I had stopped loving you, that it would be easy to turn away from you once I saw you again. But that was the worst part: I hadn’t. I couldn’t have—it wouldn’t have hurt so bad if I had. Even after our fight, when I realised that your feelings really had grown into something real, I had spent so long stewing in resentment that I couldn’t turn back anymore. But still, all the hurt I felt around you was too much for me to handle while grappling with everything else I had gone through, so I decided I had to put my feelings aside, and give you a goodbye that might’ve given you comfort had I not returned.

But your letter made it clear that it hadn’t been enough, for either of us. You deserved the whole truth from me, just as I did from you. So to whoever we have to thank for this second chance at making peace with each other, I am grateful. I don’t know what your future holds in Noxus, but whatever it is, I want to be here for you in any way I can. My feelings may be different now, but everything I admired about you before still stands. I believe you can be a great leader no matter where you are, so long as you stay true to yourself, and that if anyone can show the people of Noxus a different way, it is you. You, who will always prioritise the peace and safety of your people, even when it means making the most difficult choices.

I am truly sorry about how things ended with your mother. I know you prayed all your life for her approval, so to receive it in a way that goes against everything you stand for must’ve been heartbreaking. I don’t doubt how much she loved you, but to force you into this position was terribly cruel. I can only hope that the rest of your family has welcomed you back with open arms, and will embrace who you are now instead of demanding what your mother expected you to be. If not, remember that there is a family here in Piltover who will always have your back.

I know that I will have to front differently if I am to return as head of the Council, but I hope that this time around, with the wisdom I have earned and the grounding presence of my family, I won’t lose myself again. And if that means being cast out when they realise who I’ve become, then so be it. All I want is to improve as much as possible with the time I have left, and to set Zaun and the Academy up for success when I inevitably retire. There will be staunch opposition and a million other problems to iron out, but at this point, if they want to stop me they’re going to have to kill me. I’m done asking people like them if it’s okay to help those in need—or for anything, for that matter.

Truthfully, I had initially planned to resign once Viktor had woken from his stasis after Jinx’s attack. But instead, he ended our partnership and left, and I couldn’t bring myself to think of anything outside of the lab, yet alone arranging a formal retirement. It was only then that I started to realise what must have been obvious to everyone else: that you’re right, I do love him, in more ways than I ever could’ve imagined. I know I’m far from the person he must have hurt the most, but I want to forgive him for what he’s done, and do whatever I can to earn his forgiveness for the part I played in his corruption. That’s when I know I’ll be ready to retire, and start living my life with him the way we’d always dreamed.

I hope to hear from you again soon. I’ll have to check with the Council if we’re on stable ground with Noxus again—I hope we are. The last thing I want now is to make an enemy out of yet another partner.

Whatever news you hear coming out of Piltover about us, however it makes you feel, just remember this: I’m controlling my own story, now. Just like you.

Your friend,

Jayce Talis