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Silco and Vander.

Her two boys.

Her family; the first people to ever love her, that she ever loved in return.

They weren’t fighting, exactly. Their voices were muffled, though raised. They were bunched close together, in each other’s faces, hands moving between them. Vada’s body didn’t do anything that usually depicted shock. There was no gasping, no flinching, no jolt. These things only happen when you wake from a bad dream, not when you wake into one.

Vander lashed out.

Nails clawed across Silco’s face.

Blood spurted into the air.

Suddenly, Vander was grabbing Silco by the hair and dragging him into the river. Vada caught her breath, first frozen by her confusion of the scene. Utter bewilderment. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, couldn’t make sense of it. They thrashed together in the water, fighting through the tide, yelling and screaming. Until Vander wrapped his hands around Silco’s throat and forced his head under the water.

Her body reacted before her brain.

“No—!” She sprinted down the muddy beach, plunging herself into the toxic water, “Don’t do this, don’t—!”

A harried thought, a distant memory, burst in her head: together, they could take Vander down.

In the shallows, Vada threw herself at Vander with everything she had. She pummeled him with fists and kicks and tears, but he was far too strong. He shook her off and shoved her away, backhanding her hard across the face. She tasted iron spread across her teeth and she clawed at him once more. Silco was blinded by the blow to his face, head still underwater, as Vander fended off Vada’s attacks. In his rage, the man she always considered a big brother threw his arm harshly backward and she jerked herself out of his reach, hurling herself into the water to escape him.

Shock shuddered through her, a disgusting gulp of polluted grime filled her mouth, before she dragged herself out of the water again. Vander was dragging Silco deeper. Vada wouldn’t get to him in time.

But she didn’t give up.

No one could stop her now.

Vada lunged after them, diving beneath the water to try to drag Silco to the surface this way. Her small hands tugged and pulled at his clothes. She could feel the fine bones in his shoulders and the tears of his shirt, but no matter what she did, she wasn’t strong enough. She couldn’t get Vander to stop. His grip was tight, and his hands would not leave his brother’s throat. He pushed him deeper and deeper still.

In the water, Silco’s teeth gnashed and he thrashed against Vander, hands clawing up his shirt, his neck, anything he could reach. But he couldn’t get to the surface. He couldn’t get to the air. His blood mixed with the filth. The river toxins ate through his nerves. Vada was weeping, crying and screaming without even realizing it.

He was going to kill him.

Oh gods, Vander was going to kill Silco.

“Sil!” Vada wanted him to know she was coming, that she was trying to get to him, “Vander, stop! Please!”

Vada cried out again and was not heard, fighting like a wild animal stuck in a trap. Her screams trailed off and fell away. She had to refind her voice — reaching far down, to learn to speak again and call out his name.

“Silco, I’m here!” Louder. “I’m coming, Sil!”

He heard her.

But it wasn’t enough.

Vander released Silco just long enough to grab Vada by her face, dig his nails into her cheeks, and then fling her back into the water. The girl had landed sprawling with pain, dragging in another gulp of sludge, vision flashing white. She breached the water, emerging from the oil—slick waves with a desperate gasp.

His brother would beat them both. Maybe, even together, they couldn’t take Vander down. The much bigger man loomed above them both as Vada struggled on and saw the frantic expression on Silco’s face. She had seen him afraid, but never like this. Silco’s eyes flickered closed. He stopped fighting. The water held him, whispering in low tones to let it in. Every problem in the world faded away. His hand fell limp, slipping down Vander’s arm and back into the river.

Had he had enough?

Finally, suddenly, Silco’s fingers snagged the knife from Vander’s belt and then stabbed. Vander roared as he reeled back and released. Silco burst from the water with a desperate gasp, throwing out his hands to reach for Vada, one clear eye staring upward.

“Sil!”

Silco collapsed into her side, arms falling over her shoulders and sides, pulling himself into her with a gasp of relief. Vada stumbled back through the dirty water, dragging him towards her, dragging him away from Vander. She shouldered most of his weight, water and blood seeping off both of them, feeling his pounding heart against her own. He let his mouth messily kiss her palm, and he held the girl’s hand in his face and bled onto her fingers.

She came back for him.

His brother reached out, snatching at her arm, her shirt, her hair, anything he could reach. Silco slashed at his forearm blindly, keeping him off of her before they both fled. As Vander’s screams echoed behind them, Silco and Vada tripped and fell through the water, pushing and swimming as fast and hard as they could.

Two silhouettes became smaller and smaller and then finally, faded into the darkness.

Silco was dying.

The moment they stumbled out of the river, Vada knew couldn’t keep him alive on her own.

Silco was going to die and he was going to leave them all alone.

He would barely speak, from the near crushing grip Vander just had on his throat along with whatever sludge he had gasped in when his head was held beneath the polluted river. His arms wrapped sluggishly around her waist as she dragged them along, fingers clawing painfully into her skin, clinging to her tighter than he ever had.

Silco felt impossibly fragile against Vada, in a way he never was before, as if one wrong move would mean the end of him. His breathing was growing fainter in her ear, the unsteady beat of his heart waning against her side. His black hair was matted with blood, grease, and mud, but the damage to his face was still painfully evident. It was a mess of torn flesh and open muddied wounds. Deep jagged lines carved by nails into his eye down to his mouth, ripping away the flesh and leaving only blood in its wake.

Blood was everywhere, absolutely everywhere.

Vada went deeper and deeper in the Fissures, Silco practically hanging off of her as yhey ducked through alleyways and stumbled into skant warehouses, hiding from the Sons and Daughters of Zaun as much as from Enforcers. She pounded on doors and made pleas, and they each turned her away. They each directed her to one person, instead. She’d heard rumors of a doctor, a mad scientist, who experimented on victims, willing and unwilling. They said he was good at what he did, that he could save even the most hopeless cases. Before he tested and experimented and potentially mutilated them.

With a pistol in her hand, Vada had to take that chance.

Soaked and bleeding, she tracked the infamous doctor down.

At an old fish cannery somewhere near the docks, Vada held Silco against her side and pounded on a thick steel door until she heard the scritch—scratch sound of movement on the other side.

The door creaked open. Vada held her breath.

Then, a pair of white eyes carefully peeked around the door and the first thing those eyes found was a pistol aimed at his head. Behind that, there was a young girl standing at his doorstep. The gun in her hand felt like it was rusting into her palm. She didn’t say anything like ‘hello’, or ‘please help’, or any other such expected sentence. Instead, she asked two questions.

“Are you Singed?” was her first question.

He nodded.

“Do you take walk—ins?” was her second.

For a moment, the doctor did and said nothing. As he looked uncomfortably at the crumpled human shape hanging from the girl’s own body, Vada’s voice was scraped out and handed across the dark like it was all that was left of her.

“Save him!” Tears slipped down her cheeks heavily, pleading now as her gun—wielding hand shook, “Please, please save him.”

The doctor ignored the gun and instead settled his gaze on her, taking one long look at her. Her desperate face. The quivering in her lip. The tears in her golden eyes. Finally, the doctor waved her inside. Together, they dragged Silco’s limp and soaked body into the cannery between them. Once they set him on a cot by the wall, blankets were heaped on top and leather straps fastened around Silco’s shaking body.

Then, the doctor set to work.

Cleaning and cutting and stitching.

Silco was already burning with fever, sweating even as he shivered. The chemicals had taken a hold of him. The convulsions were fierce as the toxins ravaged through his body, infecting his blood and flesh. He screamed and writhed, and Vada wept as she held him down so the doctor could inject a strange shimmering serum into his eye.

His screams reached a fever—pitch when Singed poured alcohol over the jagged cuts on his face with cold indifference. Silco threw stray fists before trying to claw at his own skin, as if tearing the flesh completely away might save him from the agony. Sobbing, Vada had to curl her fists into his soaked shirt to resist from pulling the gun on the doctor again, never mind simply lunging at him to get him away from Silco. To stop everyone from hurting him ever again.

“He’s trying to help you, he’s trying to help you,” Vada repeated it like a mantra over Silco’s screams, as much reassuring him as she was herself.

When he finally passed out, it was a relief.

Singed kept working. Vada kept vigil.

“Are you prepared to lose him?” Singed asked sometime in the night.

Vada looked up at him, the answer obvious on her face, not a word needing to be spoken.

The calculating doctor’s voice held a surprising amount of sympathy, “If he lives, he will not be the same.”

Vada didn’t care.

She didn’t need him to be the same. She just needed him.

Time blurred, growing messy and unclear in her muddled mind.

Sometime that first night or on the second or the third, she thought there was movement. She could have sworn Silco’s eyes — no, eye — had opened. If it had, it was only momentarily, and it was more likely just her imagination and wishful thinking.

When they removed the bandages to check on the stages of healing, Vada was horrified to find that his eye was turning black. She was certain he would lose it. The blue iris inside had disappeared into the blackness, and a strange glowing light had taken its place. An orange circular ring that tracked movements, even when the rest of him was asleep.

Wake up! She wanted to scream. Or perhaps shake him. She didn’t. She let him rest.

In those moments of aloneness, Vada burned with hatred for Vander.

She thought about what had been done, what they were doing now, and what needed to happen next. All the while, an image of Silco hovered next to her. It was always the injured, betrayed expression on his face and the contrast colors of ice and fire in his eyes.

Amidst her tears of shock and loss, she also stewed in her anger. A large part of her considered leaving the cannery just to hunt him down and teach him the cost of betrayal. Remind him of the promises three thieving foundlings once made to never turn their backs on each other for the rest of their lives. But she couldn’t abandon Silco now. And she couldn’t risk their child a second time. She stayed.

For hours, Vada stayed with Silco as he shivered and slept.

“Don’t die…” She whispered in his ear, fingers catching in his tangled hair, “Please, Silco, just don’t die.”

On what may have been the fifth day, there was some relief when Silco opened his right eye, if only for a few moments. What he predominantly saw (and what a frightening view it must have been) was Singed, practically stabbing a long—tipped needle into his left eye for another injection. Before Vada could even speak to him, Silco roared and thrashed and then he was lost to the world again.

After close to a week, Silco woke a second time, on this occasion with Vada at his side and fully in his line of vision. Arms folded around her stomach, she was watching the body in the cot when there was a small groan. If it was possible, she nearly fell upward, out of the chair and stumbled into him.

“Sil?” Vada gasped, hands already on his chest, in his hair, on his face, “You’re okay, love, it’s okay. Can you hear me?”

Silco looked at her briefly, but there was no recognition. The eye — that red and black eye — studied her as if she were a riddle. Then gone again.

Silco remained unconscious for an unknown length of time. And throughout that entire stretch of unknown time, Vada watched him, in the tired light. His lips were slightly parted and his skin was the color of eggshells. A bare shadow of whiskers coated his jaw and chin, and the bandages covered most of his left side of his face. It became an obsession, to check on him, to see if he was still breathing. She could now interpret his signs of life, from the movement of his lips, his gathering beard, and the dark feathers of hair that moved ever so slightly when his head twitched in the dream state.

When the time finally came, Silco woke with a ragged gasp of disorientation.

His mouth opened a moment after his eyes and he struggled upright, grunting, calling her name instinctively. Rough patches of voice escaped his scarred lips. His back convulsed and his arms reached. His fingers gripped the metal sides of the cot. When he saw the desperate face of a girl beside him, there was the terrifying moment of unfamiliarity and the grasp for recollection — to decode exactly where he was and who was beside him.

After a few seconds, Silco managed to exhale a shaky breath, a quiet relief, “Vada…”

“It’s me, I’m here.”

Vada stumbled onto her knees at his side, like a drunkard barely making it to the front door of his own home. She had washed his face of the mud and blood, but she would still see the stains of it on his face. Her thumbs found his cheeks, gently stroking away these tears that had flowed out of him without his knowledge or consent.

“You’re here…” His strained voice also held on, as if possessing fingernails. He pressed it into her flesh.

“I’m here,” she repeated.

Silco’s movements were fragmented, and a trembling hand reached out, his bed—warmed hand taking her by the forearm. His grip was weak but certain, unwilling to let her go even if she wanted him to. Vada stood before him, wide—eyed and witnessing his gripping fingers and his desperate face. Both held onto her. Now that they were open, his eyes were hazy and mismatched. Thick and heavy. Everything was a blur for him. The world seen only through one clear eye, the other… Nothing was clear. He felt as if he was living in unfamiliar skin, torn apart and stitched back together by foreign hands.

Vada was the only tether to life that he had left.

The only thing he could be sure of.

Silco’s words were slippery and small, quelled by acid and disuse but absolutely smothered in anguish, “Don’t leave me… Please don’t…”

“Never.” Vada whispered vehemently, “I’m not going anywhere, unless you go with me.”

His fingers started cooling.

His hand slipped down her arm until it caught messily with her fingers, giving a light tug. A silent conversation passed in a matter of seconds. Vada slipped onto the cot with him, even though it was far too small for the both of them, but that had never stopped them before. Silco immediately clung to her, arms locked tightly around her waist, her body wrapped around him like a second skin, much more familiar than his own. He buried his face into her chest and breathed her in as she smoothed her hands up his back.

They simply laid together, basking in the certainty of his survival, of what had led them here in the first place. They didn’t need to discuss it, not now. That would all come later. Neither of them were ready. Eventually, Silco shifted against Vada, his heterochromic eyes fighting to stay open. Trepidation found its way onto his scarred and unfamiliar face, and he whispered a confession to the girl.

“Vada? I don’t want…” He winced, hesitated on the truth, “To fall asleep again.”

She didn’t ask why. She already knew.

Vada was resolute, “Then I’ll sing to you. And I’ll wake you if you start slipping. I’ll hold you close and shake you ‘til you wake.”

He trusted her.

That afternoon, and well into the night, Vada sang to Silco. He laid in her arms and absorbed the words, awake this time. When Vada took a quick rest from the second chorus of The World Below, she looked across the thin pillow to find Silco asleep. Nervously, she nudged him. He awoke. Another two times, he fell asleep. Twice more, she saved him from the nightmares.

And as he woke and wrapped arms tighter around her, Silco whispered, “It’s just you and me now.”

No, Vada thought, It’s not.

After he healed, but not long after, Vada finally told Silco. The truth, all of it; in all of its complexity and simplicity.

Two words.

Two simple words, and it stopped the world’s orbit.

The warmth in his icy blue eyes vanished when she told him. His entire body had stiffened, completely rigid beneath her touch. He couldn’t suppress a dry swallow as his mismatched gaze drifted past her. Vada had poured out her heart to him, tried to shine a bit of light into this endless darkness, and Silco had pulled his hand away.

It hurt worse than a bullet to the d—mn heart.

Apparently, Vander had told Silco some such thing in the midst of the fight, right before he had pushed his head beneath the waves. He’d claimed that the baby was his responsibility, his child. But Silco hadn’t believed him; he couldn’t when Vada had come to rescue him, when she had dragged him from the water. What Vander said wasn’t true, but it wasn’t totally a lie either.

The truth was, she must have been naive.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Vada had to have known that pregnancy and a less—than—happy response could always be a possibility. From the moment she went to Silco’s bed, she had to recognize the risk. But she had never anticipated that it could actually happen to her. It happened to other girls, unlucky ones whose lovers left or died or turned them out into the street.

Silco had done none of those things; that was the truth, too.

What he had done felt much worse.

Since the moment she met him, even long before they first shared a bed, Silco and Vada had been intertwined. Their souls, whatever was left of them, were one and the same. He had always made it very clear that he would die before he ever let her go, and Vada had no reason to doubt him. Like a child, she believed him with all her stupid heart. She never could have imagined he would abandon her this way, even though he was still in the room with her.

Perhaps if they were still at The Last Drop. Perhaps if there was peace with Vander. Perhaps if things were different. Perhaps if everything was different. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

Silco and Vada circled each other like wounded animals.

He didn’t broach the subject and she didn’t dare either, out of sheer stubbornness. In fact, they barely broached any subject at all. Mostly, they didn’t even talk. Any and all conversation existed between either of them and Singed. Silco seemed to have made a deal with the doctor, working together on what exactly Vada wasn’t sure. All she knew was that they didn’t have to vacate, and the cannery had somehow become their permanent residence.

Life in the Lanes certainly didn’t promise sunlight nor did it promise fresh air, but it did offer something other than perpetual darkness. And that was all that the cannery provided. Cold air and heavy blackness, like a wide blanket draping over the whole aquarium. It reminded her of the mines when shadows and enclosed spaces were all she knew. It was killing her. Drowning her. Making her feel like she was losing herself.

Vada often found herself staring into small shards of some long lost mirror, staring and staring until her vision blurred and the person staring back became a stranger. This was what the cannery was full of. Strangers. The strangers weren’t altogether unfriendly, though, and she wasn’t entirely alone either. People spoke to her, like ghosts in the walls, hiding in the corners.

Silco was an occasional visitor.

She would roll over in the night, lashes flickering open to find him sitting there in the corner of the room. His face was only halfway in the scant light, his blue and red eyes hidden away in the shadows, saying nothing. He just sat there, watching over her, or maybe he wasn’t.

Maybe he was nothing more than a ghost. A part of her imagination.

He was gone just as quick, anyway.

But still, Vada stayed.

For the child within her. For old time’s sake. For the vow of loyalty. For… she didn’t know what.

One thing was clear: Silco had nothing to offer Vada now.

Her or… or the child.

He was useless to them both.

And Vada clearly thought so, too.

A part of Silco — a deep and dark part, was angry with Vada. Because she didn’t tell him. Because she waited until it was too late. Because she almost let him believe what Vander said was true. Because she didn’t think he was worth the truth.

He had no other choice but to accept that she hadn’t wanted him to know.

After all, what did he have to offer her child?

Silco had his clever mind and way with words and nothing more. He was nothing but a sump—rat. Another face among the masses. A soldier fighting a losing war. Not a provider. Not a champion. Not the sort of man she would want as a father to her child. Now, he was beaten and bruised and scarred, and he had even less. In the space of an hour, he had lost everything he had ever worked for. His cause, his home, his brother… He found he was consistently torn between his thoughts that she wanted better and that she would not survive long enough to ever find it.

Despite his newfound self—disgust and shame and anger, Vada was also all Silco had left, and he could not bring himself to any sort of relief when all he felt looking at her slowly expanding belly was fear and dread.

Silco had been right, all those weeks ago, when he told her that he was waiting to lose her.

Now, he could feel himself pulling away out of shameful instinct, in dreaded anticipation of what was to come.

Childbirth in the Undercity was a dangerous business. A bloody, brutal business. The miracle of life was no miracle. Most pregnancies were an accident in the Underground. After all, who would bring life into the world when there was never enough to go around as it was? Who would be so cruel? Or so naive? Only those foolish enough to think the risk was worth it. His own mother had died in childbirth, as had most of the mothers of men and women he knew. Vada would die, too. Silco knew it. Knew it within his blood and bone marrow, as sure as he’d known the need for revolution.

Babies were always smaller for Fissurefolk, true, from a lack of nourishment and proper medical care, along with the toxins that existed within their air and water. Even still, the mothers grew sallow and thin as the child stole away all of their nutrients, sucked up their energy, draining their bodies of life.

Silco watched the same happen to Vada.

The early signs of her declining health were innocent enough, and typical for the Undercity. Constant coldness. Swimming hands. No matter close to the heating pipes as she sat, she could not raise herself to any degree of approximate warmth. No matter how much food he pushed on her, sources of energy he set before her, she kept growing thinner. Day by day, her weight began to stumble off her. He could count each rib on her bare back. Deep bruises blossomed beneath her tarnished golden eyes. Her usual exercise regimen had faltered and fell apart, the rooftops and open air stolen from her in one foul swoop.

When asked, Vada insisted she was fine.

Silco knew she wasn’t.

The distance between them continued to grow.

Time slipped by sluggishly.

There was cool cement and plenty of time to spend lying on it. The minutes were cruel. The hours were punishing. Looming above her at all moments of awakeness was the hand of time, and it didn’t hesitate to choke her out. It smiled and strangled and squeezed and let her live.

What great malice there could be in allowing someone to live.

Vada and Silco still shared a bed, technically, though they’d never felt more alone even in their company. They slept in silence, each with their backs turned, not a word shared between them. He ignored her and she ignored him. There were nights when she could find no comfort. Not in anything. She cried to herself silently and wondered why, after all the pain and suffering she had already endured in her short life, that this too had been inflicted upon her. If Silco ever heard her from across the cot, he gave no indication.

Vada kept mostly to herself, and gave up wondering what Silco was doing with himself. He was healing. He was surviving. What else did she care about?

Vada, instead, escaped into her mind and sought refuge there. She felt as if her entire body was humming with anxious energy, feeling far more trapped and cooped up than she ever had — even when she had lived far deeper in the Fissures. The girl paced the wide cold rooms endlessly, hands trailing the walls to test the rough texture beneath her fingers, just trying to feel something. She fiddled with her braids, rubbed her fluttering hands over her growing belly, bit her nails until they were stubs, over and over.

“It’s just my boy dancing around,” Vada tried to assure herself when the baby kicked and Silco silently tensed.

Their boy — or that was what she thought it was — was never shy with his movements, constantly picking fights with her organs. Through the perfect dome of her belly, he gave constant high—fives to Singed, and whenever a Silco tentatively reached out, he received a swift kick. Though somewhat pleased, Vada wisely said nothing.

Most days, the doctor would descend the aquarium steps and share a conversation as he worked on the shimmering liquid. He would occasionally hand her a spare crust of bread, although they both knew it was only because Silco made him do so. It was when she felt the baby move, however, that Vada found herself most interested in life again. Initially, she tried to resist the feeling, but it was harder every day now that the child began to make itself known.

There was no one to tell her how pregnancy ought to progress.

What was normal. What was natural.

Was the skin of her belly supposed to burn to the touch, feeling it pull taut as it grew in size? Was it natural to crave as many strange foods as she did? Was she meant to increasingly lose control of her own emotions, which she usually kept such a vice—like grip upon? Was it normal to see the child’s small fist push through her skin?

None of it felt normal or natural to her, after all.

And Silco certainly had nothing to say about it, either.

A part of her considered going to the brothels where many women had conceived and given birth within the walls, including her own mother. Surely, they would be able to educate her on everything she didn’t already know. Their knowledge of such things did extend beyond the actual making of a child, and she knew that process well enough. Oh yes, Vada and Silco had become very adept at that part. D—mn him. Her very first, her one and only. The b—stard.

But the Lanes were forbidden to her.

Going much of anywhere beyond the old cannery was forbidden, now. As if Silco could forbid her from going anywhere or doing anything. If she weren’t so exhausted and unsteady, she would make his healing face a home for her fist. But she knew he had his reasons and she agreed with them. Really, they both knew the only reason she didn’t do whatever she wanted was because she agreed. More or less, anyway. She had chosen a side, the moment she had set upon Vander and pulled Silco up from the depths. She had chosen a side and she would be put down just the same if she was seen in Vander’s territory.

So she lived in lonely uncertainty.

The days hobbled on.

Vada didn’t want Silco anymore. This, he knew and was trying hard to accept. Even more so, he was trying hard to respect it. Still, he would not be dissuaded from his path. His new cause. What Vada wanted, he wasn’t sure, but she was the mother of his child and so he would be wherever she was. He would not leave her. Even if he had nothing. Even if she hated him.

More than anything, Silco knew he would burn Piltover to the ground to make Zaun safe for them.

Slowly, Silco began to bring others into his employ. In the shadows, he had found like—minded people and he was forming an empire out of them. Soon, they had protection. Street thugs playing soldiers to defend and fight and follow orders. They filled the aquarium at all hours, slipping out onto the streets to gain ground Silco couldn’t touch himself.

Vada knew he was planning for the future again.

What part she played in it, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t ask.

Still, Silco and Vada weren’t so dissimilar that she didn’t know what he was thinking. Vander’s plan would come to nothing. The revolution would fail. Piltover would win.

Nightmares of this began to reinforce themselves, as the young couple began to truly understand how things were and how they would always be.

Despite the distance steadily growing between them, Vada would always know the similarities between Silco and herself. They had dangerous minds and sharp tongues. They were skin and bones. They each had corrupted lungs. Neither of them should have made it past twenty. But mostly, they both nightmared. New ones had been added to the array; new and horrible ones. Of the drowning. Of the betrayal. Of the revolution’s inevitable failure.

Vada and Silco hardly looked at one another during the day, and then the only time they would truly speak would be in the middle of the night, when they started to drag the other gently from nightmares. Most often, when these visions interrupted their sleep, Vada would be woken by Silco’s quiet murmurings. One hand gripping the soft fabric of her shirt, the other resting over the swollen curve of her belly. The only time he would ever touch it. Or any other part of her.

“The river?” Vada would always whisper.

And every time Silco confirmed, “The river.”

He would gulp the air like he was still drowning until he was ready, and then they could talk. Just talk. For the first time, for the only time. Never about anything but the nightmare, simply what they saw when they closed their eyes and then the assurances of wakefulness.

It would be nice to say that after this small breakthrough, that Vada and Silco grew together again, that neither of them dreamed their bad visions once more. It would be nice but untrue. They kept their distance, their nightmares arrived like they always did, and Piltover still would have won.

If nothing else, these nighttime conversations helped Vada see clearly.

Perhaps that was why on the night before Progress Day — of all days, the answer to the question of her suffering showed itself completely, despite her perplexity and her rage.

She would fight.

Like she told Vander she would. For the sake of the baby, who did not deserve to be treated like grime under Piltover’s boot, who deserved more than their runoff. In Piltover, Progress Day marked the anniversary of the day the Sun Gates opened for the first time, allowing trade to pass through the city, bringing unimaginable wealth to its citizens. In Zaun, it was a day to remember those lost in the creation and division of their home.

Vada would be ready.

Their child would have a better life than she did, with or without Silco, with or without grandeur.

Happy Progress Day, Piltover.

Many happy returns.

Silco woke to an empty bed.

His hand slipped across the cot instinctively, expecting to find Vada’s familiar warmth and body, but he stilled when he felt nothing but cold and emptiness. His eye opened and his breath caught in his chest. In a sudden flash of panic, he fairly threw himself out of the small cot and across the room. He dashed out the door, rushed down the concrete hall and out the monstrous doorway towards the staircase.

How could he let this happen? Had she left the cannery and the safety it provided? Did she bring a weapon? Was she coming back? No. He couldn’t think about that. All he could think about was that she was out there, on the streets, in the cold and the dark, utterly defenseless. She was vulnerable now. He couldn’t lose her, he couldn’t lose them. He’d been so stupid to let her out of his sight for even a moment. He’d been so stupid to let her drift away from him, to keep up this stubbornness, to turn his back when he should hold her close. Stupid, stupid, stupid—

Silco skidded to a halt at the top of the steps. All was well. Vada was fine. She was still here. She sat just in front of the tall glass, looking out at the river before her. He nearly fell over with the weight of his relieved exhale.

Slowly, once he recovered his breath and more or less a normal heartbeat, Silco began the descent. The warehouse was bathed in a blue haze, which soaked her silhouette and filled up the room like a bath. His foot scuffed on the final step, and Vada spun with a blade raised high in threat.

Silco paused, arching his only remaining brow, “Going to stab me with that?”

Her thin shoulders sagged in recognition, but she didn’t put down the knife. For a moment, Silco thought she really might stab him. Vada seemed to think she might, too. Finally, she lowered her hand and turned back to stare at the river. With a muted sigh, Silco let himself approach and sat gingerly beside her.

After a long bout of uneasy silence, he said, “I thought you’d left.”

“I didn’t know you’d notice if I did,” she replied evenly.

He rolled his tongue in his mouth but said nothing. He would notice. Of course he would. Just like he noticed that she paced the boundaries of this place endlessly, that she slept better on her side than her back, that she always felt less restless after drinking the Ionian herbal tea he had specially smuggled, the baby seemed to move more whenever he spoke, that she loved eating the oranges when he could get them from Noxus. He noticed everything. It was her fault if she didn’t think he would notice.

But was it, really?

She glanced over at her, lips pulled taut, “What if I did leave?”

Silco looked at Vada so sharply, it was a miracle she didn’t bleed. But she matched his stare unflinchingly. The look in his eyes… The way her regarded her… He seemed absolutely furious with her, and she was immediately furious that he had the audacity to feel that way.

Vada pushed, “Do you want me to leave?”

Silco snapped, “No.”

He spoke with such vehemence that, for the first time in many years, she let him win the argument without further explanation. So, the decision was made. Vada would stay.

That decision seemed the turning point for a severe downslide in Vada’s health.

For a while, she managed to hold herself together, but by the midpoint of her pregnancy, she was in worrisome shape. She would struggle to wake up next to the pipes, sleeping well into the day instead, her mouth distorted and her cheekbones starting to swell. Her belly had swelled and the creature inside was larger, movements stronger, more defined and baby—like. Her body filled with panic at the feeling. The pain in her feet was far worse than it had ever been. Her ankles ached. Vada was always a level—headed person, calm and stable, but now, she could feel her moods swinging wildly before she even had time to process why she was feeling any particular way. Angry. Sad. Peaceful. But never, ever happy.

In mid—winter, at the start of her seventh month, Vada stumbled into the aquarium on the verge of collapse.

She nearly fell into Singed’s workshop, gasping out, “Sil—,”

Before she could finish, her legs gave way and her head hit the side of the desk. At once, a vial of experimental Shimmer shattered against the concrete and Silco was at her side, his knees aching from their sudden drop to the ground. His eyes frantically scanned her blank paled face, heart thudding in his chest while he pressed a hand to the blood slowly trickling from her forehead.

Silco cradled her head in shaking hands and barked across the room at one of his many underlings, “Don’t just stand there, get extra blankets. Take them to my chambers. And you!”

Mek was next, tattooed and wide—eyed.

“Help me carry her. Now!”

Singed didn’t need direction, already gathering supplies, as they carried Vada from the aquarium and back to the cot. Silco paced the small space like some kind of caged feral animal as the doctor set to work. When they managed to rouse her back to consciousness, Singed — who was not an actual medical doctor — explained what he believed the cause to be was more or less a lack of necessary nutrients and proper rest. From what he could tell, both Vada and the child were fine. He thought so. Though she really ought to not restrict herself from doing any troublesome activities.

Vada nearly screamed. Forget ‘troublesome activities’, she never did anything anymore.

As everyone else slowly filed out of their shared bedroom, Silco dropped onto the side of the cot with a deep huff. He massaged the bridge of his nose and pushed his hair back from his face, slicking it down the back of his head. He would need to get a haircut soon. His eyes were red, and he was unshaven, a stubble appearing from sitting at her bedside for too long. It was possibly the most unkempt she had ever seen him when he was not starving or fighting or bleeding out in some way or another.

Vada laid tiredly in the cot, head aching, rubbing a hand over her swollen middle. She knew the thing growing inside of her was a gift she owed to Silco, and she hated him all the more for it. Their baby was feeling restless, and little feet and elbows fought for space inside, visible even through the cotton of her shirt. When she glanced at him, she found Silco watching with an utterly devastated expression on his face.

The girl quietly sighed to herself, “We can’t keep going on like this, Sil…”

His eyes flicked up to meet hers, lips thinning. He gave a short nod and said nothing else for a time. Finally, “I can hear you crying. In the night.”

It was stated stiffly, words shoved into her arms rather than actually spoken to her.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think you’d like to hear it.”

Vada barely swallowed down a scoff, but Silco must have heard it anyway from the way his shoulders rolled back. He was readying himself for a fight. Good. She prepared herself, too. It made sense. Finally here it was: the inevitable confrontation; it had been brewing beneath the surface for months now.

Clenched with frustration, Vada shook her head and hissed, “I don’t know why you want me to stay, when you don’t even want us, when you won’t even—,”

“I want you.” Silco cut her off, ferocity shining in his eyes and voice, “I have always f—cking wanted you.”

He sat absolutely still as the words floated morosely free of him, leaving him completely alone. His mismatched eyes staggered, and it was so simple. The words were given across from the man to the woman. They climbed on to her. Burning tears fought for room in her flickering eyes, but she would not let them free. Better to sit stubborn and proud. Let the words do all the fighting. The next time she spoke, the question stumbled from her mouth.

“Then why—?”

“I don’t know what you need from me, Vada. Tell me what you need.”

She sighed almost helplessly, shoulders slumping into the cot, “I don’t need anything from you.”

“It’s my child, too,” Silco snapped.

“Is it?” Vada snapped back, “You haven’t seemed to notice before now.”

In the morning’s early hours, quiet voices were loud. It felt nearly like they were screaming at each other. That wasn’t like them at all. Silco’s blue and red eyes flashed with danger and fear. The scare in them could easily be mistaken as a threat in response to her words or concern for the near concussion she’d suffered. But Vada knew him too well to be so deceived.

Their silence was a bitter one.

Then, in the darkness of the night, Silco whispered, “You didn’t tell me.”

“What?” Vada was a little startled, rolling to look at him better.

“When you found out about the child… you didn’t tell me.”

Vada paused when her breath caught, and unease jumbled words in her mouth. Her heart thumped in her chest, hard and heavy and aching for the man just a few inches away. There was so much to say and yet so little she feared he would understand.

“W—We agreed… we can keep secrets, not tell lies.”

“This wasn’t your secret to keep. Not yours alone.” Silco’s voice sliced her up, falling like injuries from his mouth, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think you’d like to hear it,” she spat his own words back at him, even though she knew it wasn’t fair. Correcting herself, she drew in a long breath and murmured, “I waited to tell you because…”

Silco had fully turned to look at her now, silent and waiting. She closed her eyes because she couldn’t bear to see the truth of his thoughts on his face.

“Because if I had told you I was pregnant, you might’ve agreed to run away with me.” Her voice failed her and she slowly shook her head, “And—And the cause was your life, I didn’t want to disappoint you. Distract you. I couldn’t risk stealing it from you.”

He turned to stare at the wall for a long silent moment.

Then, “That wasn’t your decision to make.”

She accepted this, and he slowly exhaled, though a weight seemed to visibly lift from his shoulders. It wasn’t because she didn’t think he was worth it, because she didn’t want him anymore. She wanted to protect him.

“Would you have?” Vada suddenly took a chance, heart beating wildly in her chest, “Run away with me, that is.”

Silco sharply inhaled, looking at her, taking her in, watching her in a way that made her feel like someone he knew again.

And then Silco said, “No.”

Vada’s shoulders fell and her small nose scrunched. The low rumble of his chuckles filled the room so she scoffed out a laugh, punching him painfully in his side.

As he loudly grunted, she grinned her first smile in what felt like years, “You’re a real a—hole, you know?”

Silco didn’t respond, but he still chuckled beside her.

He knows.

They drifted back into silence, one far more comfortable than they’d ever had for the past five months, Silco watching intently as Vada ran her hands over where their child rested once more.

When she spoke again, it was the taste of a whisper, “I need you to be here, Sil. With me. With us. If you can’t do that, then I can’t stay.”

“I can, I will.” Silco nodded sharply, nearly desperately, “It will take time, but I will build an empire for you. For the child. A nation that will last.”

“I don’t need anything.” Vada repeated herself, voice softer this time, “I would rather starve with you in Zaun than live like a councilor in Piltover.”

“You shouldn’t starve for anyone.”

“I’d starve for you.”

Maybe it was the concussion that made her do it, but tentatively, Vada reached for Silco’s hand. Her fingers tangled with his own, before she gently pulled him towards her. Then, without any real explanation or thought behind it, she raised her shirt and pressed his palm to her bare stomach. He sharply inhaled again, but he didn’t recoil from her now, not like he had before.

Instead, Silco released a shuddery breath and waited with his hand against her. There was no swift kick or absence of any feeling. Slowly, finally, Silco felt a soft hand reach out to find his own through the skin. His long fingers delicately traced over the little fist he could see pushing through her belly, like the baby was trying to reach out to him, like he was trying to meet him too.

Vada blinked sleepily over at Silco, her fingers threading through his dark shock of hair. Pale hands slipped down and traced fingertips along the ridges of his sharp collarbones, and she dreamily realized his left eye looked nearly like fire in the darkness, a lighthouse calling her to shore.

“I’ll keep him safe, Vada.” His soft awed smile dimmed down into a determined set of his jaw, “No one will ever hurt him.”

Her golden eyes were brighter now, staring down at him, “You promise?”

“I promise.”

The final months were harder than Vada expected.

Especially in a cold and comfortless place like the cannery.

The girl felt herself losing whole days, wandering the aquarium or lying in bed. She laid in the cot, body tense, shaking because she kept waiting to fall through it, sink through the thin mattress and hit the hard concrete floor. Food trays came and went, and by the time she truly began to consider eating, the trays would be gone again.

Worst of all, she grew too big to even dare climbing. Not pipes, not buildings, not rooftops, nothing at all. Her center of gravity had shifted and the balance she had always relied upon was lost. She nearly mourned its loss as gravely as she would the loss of Silco, or perhaps one of her appendages.

Her autonomy felt stolen from her; her body no longer felt like her own.

Suddenly Silco was involved in every possible way, and Vada sardonically wondered if she liked it better when he refused to be involved at all. Because somehow Silco had become an annoying infant factoid machine. He wanted to discuss everything. Constantly. About how she was feeling. About what the baby was doing. About how they could care for a newborn in the cannery. About how they should hold and wean and raise and educate and protect the child once it was actually there.

Silco’s eyes — blue and red — followed Vada everywhere. He was always asking if she was all right, and no matter how many times she assured him, he knew better, he always knew better, and he was always looking at her. He saw that she began to feel desperate. A bit mad. The child growing within her suddenly felt like a parasite, an invasion, something that had taken root without her consent.

Perhaps it was her exhaustion and utter detachment from reality that made Vada listen to Silco.

“It’s all arranged. I have taken care of everything.” He spoke like this was some sort of d—mn business deal, “Trust me, Vada.”

Despite her better judgement, and everything that had happened, Vada did trust him. More than anyone.

It was somewhere around this time, between secret meetings with Chem—Barons and plans to raid Piltover warehouses, that Silco realized they had no real concept of what to do with a child. The only children they had ever been around was when they themselves were children, which was quite a while ago. They had somehow survived a lack of knowledge through the pregnancy, but the birthing and actual raising of a child would be an entirely different experience.

So, he’d fetched a midwife, or some person adjacent to such a thing, and in her final weeks, the woman came to tend to her. To prepare them both.

Whatever threats and bribes Silco had inflicted upon the poor woman had to be extreme. That much was clear in how the midwife regarded him with equal parts fear and trepidation. Vada didn’t have it in her to either reprimand Silco for threatening the person bringing their child into the world nor assure said person that he wouldn’t really kill her… Because she couldn’t promise that, could she?

She was no longer sure what lengths Silco would go to.

Truthfully, Vada wasn’t sure for herself, either.

In any case, Silco seemed pleased with such a reaction and the midwife kept well away from the future kingpin, clearly knowing that not providing their child with the best possible care would not end well for her.

As Vander’s revolution failed above their heads, Silco and Vada’s child came with the first fall of ash.

There was a second, only a second, that Vada regretted it.

It was as the little baby cried and the midwife cleaned Vada up. She was sweaty and tired and everything hurt. It hurt while it was happening, but she didn’t mind it, then. If anything, she had relished in the pain. The pain was good. The pain meant this was real. They told her she could scream if she wanted, but she didn’t. If anything, she laughed. She didn’t want the first thing their baby heard to be screaming.

Silco was nervously hovering and the midwife was telling her to focus on her breathing all the while Singed and the other members of their growing gang made themselves scarce. The midwife tried to do the same to Silco, insisting that birthing was strictly ‘women’s business’. The look he gave her was so vicious, it had the power to reduce grown men to tears. Needless to say, the midwife gave in, Silco was permitted to stay, and still, Vada didn’t scream.

She had never expected this, nor wanted it really, but the excitement for it came on slowly but surely. She had been content with her life as it was, happy even. But then that back alley doctor delivered her prognosis like a death sentence and everything changed.

All of the sudden, her life became something different.

And it was nothing like she thought it would be.

On that final morning before the river, some foreign and deliriously happy part of Vada had imagined it. A lifetime ahead; just the three of them — Silco, Vada, and their child. Mood swings and cravings for Jericho’s and fizzy drinks and every kind of spicy food. Her stomach turning into a mini planet that Silco couldn’t stop kissing. Little hands and little feet pushing from the inside out. Hands pressing onto a glowing belly that just keeps growing bigger. Sitting on that old couch in The Last Drop with her head on Silco’s shoulder, whispering baby names and future plans. Gifted baby cribs and cot—mobiles and demands to be the namesake.

Now, she sat on the bare cot, listening to the midwife coo at the child and watching Silco observe over her shoulder. There was a numbness to Vada, an emptiness now that she was alone.

Then, for just a millisecond, the thought came to her, no matter how briefly.

This was all a mistake.

Panic filled her body, leaving her rigid. Her heart clenched and her brain froze and she couldn’t catch her breath. Vada had made a horrible mistake. They all had made a horrible mistake. Tears filled her eyes and she could feel her heart racing, thumping wildly in her chest.

Maybe this was normal, maybe this is what happened with all mothers. The midwife would know. Her own mother probably would, too. But it didn’t feel normal, this brutal spike of ice shooting down her spine.

But just as she thought she was going to be overcome by panic, the midwife called Vada’s name. She called her name and then there was something warm and soft and impossibly delicate in her arms, wrapped carefully in a bundle of cream and fluff. The baby’s skin met hers, his head pressed to the space over her heart, heartbeat soothing him like his very first lullaby. He stopped crying immediately, choosing instead to yawn sleepily in her arms.

“Just look at him,” the midwife said softly, a giddy smile spread across her face. “I think he has your nose, miss.”

Gently, the young woman reached out and tapped the baby lightly on his little button nose. Cooing, the bundle grabbed onto her finger and refused to let go with only the kind of strength that their baby could have. Vada felt the strangest pang of something she couldn’t define for a moment… And then it hit her. It hit her so hard that it took her breath away: he needed them. He needed them to protect them. Vada and Silco were everything to this little baby, and she had only ever been ‘everything’ to one person before.

She was scared to look at him, she’s not sure why.

“Vada.” Silco touched her face gently, trying to turn her face towards him, “Look at me?”

“She’s just a little dazed,” the midwife’s voice was halfway scolding as she smoothed her damp hair back, “She needs only a moment.”

Then, two little blue—green eyes turned to gaze up at his mother, and Vada caught her breath.

Oh.

Maybe it was the delicate nose, small like a button, that was just like hers. Maybe it was his chin, a cleft so similar to her mother’s. Maybe it was the softness of his skin, supple and giving off the smell that all babies do — vanilla and clean sheets and honey. Or, maybe it was his eyes, which are the exact shade of her Silco’s who only had one of them now.

This was the moment everything changed.

Vada laughed a little, sounding only a bit damp. Then she looked up at Silco who was staring at them both with that same expression of pure devastation. Her heart was broken and remade in one breath. It was just the three of them now. He had stood diligently at her shoulder as she held the baby, peering down at his little body, never thinking to reach out, never moving to touch.

So Vada offered, “Hold him?”

Silco opened his mouth, but no words found him. There was so much he wanted to say. He wanted to say how perfect he was, how much he already loved him, both of them, that he would protect him until his dying breath, but… none of it could appropriately describe all that he felt.

Then, before he had even processed his own movements, Silco found himself taking the baby the way that one might some sort of explosive. Carefully. Away from his body. Head slightly tilted to hide the scarred side of his face. But he was holding him, one hand under his tiny body, the other cradling his little head.

Slowly, their baby reached towards Silco’s face with such a big stretch for such a little boy, and then his icy blue eyes drifted closed, a yawn sighing from his puckered lips. It was instinctive, how his arms tightened around their son, stroking down his cheek with a shaking finger. He trusted them, so completely, so wholly. He was delicate and full of life, and the panic ebbed just so that love could take its place.

Vada suddenly knew, for a fact, deep down into the marrow of her bones, that Silco would do anything for this child.

No matter the mistakes. No matter the failures. No matter the flaws.

“My boy—,” Silco began, but his voice caught. He quickly cleared his throat and tried again through what might have been tears, “Welcome to the world…”

They would reshape the world for him, as well as for the little girl that came next, and Vada never regretted it again.