Seven years. Seven long, agonizing years. Seven years of waiting, hoping, wasting.

And for what? For Vi to walk out of prison only to fall into someone else’s arms. You spent a month searching, desperate to find her after rumors of her release scattered in Zaun, only to stumble across her by chance. The relief that flooded you as you embraced her was short-lived, crushed under the weight of her truth: she’d fallen for someone else.

It wasn’t like Vi didn’t still love you. She did—maybe even more than she loved Caitlyn. Your history was long, tangled in the roots of everything that made her who she was. You’d been there before it all—before Powder became Jinx, before Vander, before the chaos that landed her behind bars.

But seven years is a long time, and she had convinced herself she’d never see you again. Caitlyn was… safe. A lifeline in the storm.

Now, though, faced with you—really faced with you—Vi didn’t know what to do. She had a choice to make, and it wasn’t a simple one.

“Listen…” she began, her voice low and uneven, the weight of it clear in every word. Her hand reached for your face, but when you pulled away, she let it drop to her side, fingers curling into her palm like she could hold herself together. “I never meant for this. For any of this.”

Her jaw clenched, and she let out a breath that felt heavier than the world she carried. “I had no idea you were waiting for me. If I’d known, I swear… I never would’ve let things with Caitlyn get this far. I—” Her words faltered, and for a moment, she just looked at you, like she was trying to memorize every piece of you she thought she’d lost forever.

“I’m sorry,” she said finally, the words barely a whisper. “I just didn’t know.”