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Vi insists on washing the dishes herself. Likes the warm water and scented soap. She’s been doing so silently for the past few weeks, because she can’t speak. She’s lost her voice to screaming when Jinx died. A sacrifice Vi would have made willingly a hundred times again, to either bring Jinx back or just, helplessly, honor her life and death.
Vi still remembers when mom and dad brought little Powder home from the doctor’s where she was born, and how she screamed so loud at night, and Vi couldn’t figure out why. Mom taught her so much about infants back then, but Vi barely remembers. She was barely four.
But Vi remembers her mom singing the two of them to sleep, oh, the moments that are so far and are never coming back. But they are so dear to Vi’s heart and mind. She loves remembering.
It just still hurts.
For years, Vi lived solely on the hope to see Powder again, and now they don’t even have a body.
So when it happened, Vi screamed her lungs out. It failed to tame her loneliness. This loneliness has nothing to do with the solitude she’s lived through. She always had the future of seeing Powder in mind. Nothing can compare with the emptiness this loss left. Her sister, Jinx, is forever so close in her heart, but Vi can’t live and breathe and can’t eat for days because she knows she failed her.
“Can I hold you?” Caitlyn asks before bed.
She’s so pretty with her hair down, wearing nightgown, the prettiest she ever is, every time. Vi loves seeing that they have a life together. She loves seeing that Caitlyn is still here, wounded, but alive.
Vi nods. Caitlyn gets into bed, and Vi does, too, and Caitlyn puts her arms around Vi’s middle, holding her close.
When Vi finally breaks, she weeps like a wounded dog, that’s what she compares herself to. She can’t sob properly with her damaged vocal cords, so her tears are just whimpers and coughs, and she’s glad Caitlyn accepts it.
Vi presses her face firmer into Caitlyn’s shoulder, and wishes so badly she could casually say, I love you, but the only way she can say it for now is pressing their skin and limbs together, and resting her lips against Caitlyn’s cheekbone, and Caitlyn never smiles into the touch, because they smile so rarely now.
Caitlyn tangles her fingers in the long hair on Vi’s nape and rubs a thumb along her neck, and it’s oddly calming. A spot Vi never liked touched, it usually meant she’s grabbed by the back of the neck to be thrown to the floor.
But here, in these arms, she will let anything happen, even if they hurt, even if they kill her, because to Caitlyn, Vi would have given more than she has.
Caitlyn says nothing, and Vi so desperately wants to say something first, but she fears that if she gets her voice back, she will scream it gone again. It’s too late, too late, Jinx will never see this life they have together. Would she have been happy for Vi for choosing herself? Did Vi choose herself or was she forced to? Either way, she’s here, in the Kiramman estate, in Caitlyn Kiramman’s arms, and it almost feels like home.
It could have felt like home if Jinx had a home somewhere near, and she would come over. She would be odd and weird and they would let her be so, but she’s not coming over.
Vi’s hands tighten on Caitlyn’s back. Caitlyn pulls back a bit to kiss Vi’s nose.
“We’ll get through this,” she says.
No, I don’t want to, Vi wants to answer, but never does, and never would if she could. Caitlyn is just giving her little reassurances. She’s doing her best.
Vi kisses her brow above the bandaged eye and goes back down to Caitlyn’s neck to feel her skin against her tears.
Time slowly flows.
--
Vi still thinks of how Caitlyn told her she loved her when Vi ran to the battlefield and couldn’t say a single word back.
I’m okay, I’m safe, I love you. Come here.
Caitlyn clearly wished she could kiss Vi then, but she didn’t, not with her whole face covered in blood and damaged eye throbbing. Vi held her hand every second.
Caitlyn asked,
“Vi, where is Jinx?”
When they were at the hospital.
Vi couldn’t scream anymore, she’s lost her voice, but she broke down hard. She couldn’t think of anything else, and still can’t, Jinx always in the back of her head. She wept and wept silently, and Caitlyn, goodness, this woman with all her injuries, was there for Vi when she could barely stay conscious.
Vi swore to herself that she would never give Caitlyn another loss.
And now they live.
--
“Hey,” Caitlyn says quietly when she kisses Vi awake. “My darling. Good morning.”
As Vi is waking up, Caitlyn holds her in her warm arms, rubbing a thumb on her chest over her heart. She is already wide awake, but Vi is still drifting off. She doesn’t know how much time has passed before she truly wakes, but all this time, Caitlyn has been there, waking her gently.
“Ready to go eat breakfast? I believe they made pancakes today. I asked them to, for you.”
Vi is still pretty numb and dissociating, so Caitlyn helps her pick clothes from the dresser, and then Vi stares at her pancakes, slowly breathing in and out, because grief got her again. She looks up at the blurred image of Caitlyn before her, tears filling her eyes again. Caitlyn takes her hand, squeezes lightly.
They finish breakfast quickly and sit in the garden under the summer sun. Caitlyn is wearing sunglasses and a straw hat, and she looks adorable in those, but Vi can barely enjoy it. They do it every day, though. Sitting in the sun helps them both stay sane.
Vi is working so hard on staying sane.