Chapter Text
"Cait." Vi murmers flatly "You're doing it again. I'm fine. I signed up for this, remember?"
Caitlyn winces internally. She was obviously being less surreptitious in her glances towards her girlfriend than she thought. "Sorry. You're right." She says softly, turning her attention back to what is ahead, where every eye in the boat is fixed.
Stillwater Hold. What an appropriate name. The grey water surrounding it, lapping against the boat the seven officers are standing on is eerily quiet as though it is trying not to draw attention to itself for fear of reprisals. Cait casts her gaze higher. She can't decide if the lack of lights on in the currently empty building improves it or not. It certainly looks more desolate without the lethargically spinning searchlight rippling out across the water. There is nothing to despel the cloying mist that only midday seems to shift naturally. Still, the fact it is currently out of commission can only be a good thing, surely? That is what they are here to establish and decide upon during this assessment inspection after all. They are to meet with a handful of engineers already at the prison and consult with them about possible conversion and structural work.
Caitlyn steals another glance at Vi. Mercifully this time it seems the redhead didn't notice. Her face is set in a determined frown. The Vi from nearly two years ago echoes in Cait's mind. "Fuck me, will I be glad to see the back of this place?!" she had muttered as she swiped the civilian clothes she had been provided with from the bench they were folded neatly on and marched into the locker room to shed the thin, sweat stained vest that seemed insufficient for the lingering chill of her cell.
And yet here she is again, almost at the jetty. Every step along it had looked lighter and more swaggering that day. Cait isn't sure she wants to see that play out in reverse. At least she has seen to it that the place is clear of the results of Doctor Revick's experiments. The sheer height to which the blood had been flung by what he had made of Vander alone was quite disturbing.
It had been a conundrum. From the moment the Council had tasked her as Sherrif with the job of deciding what was to be done with Stillwater one of her first thoughts had been of Vi. Should she even mention it or just take care of it and tell her after the fact?
To Caitlyn, that had felt distinctly wrong, almost treacherous. Vi hated being kept in the dark and would, probably quite rightly, have felt patronised and disregarded by the ommission. "I can handle myself, okay? I'm not some fragile little stray that jumps at every shadow!" She would have frowned heatedly.
There was also the perhaps more selfish consideration that Cait valued and trusted Vi's perspectives implicitly. Her lover, something of a navigator's star, had never steered her wrong when she'd had occasion to give Cait advice. Ignoring it had once near destroyed them both, not to mention hope of bringing their respective cities together. Vi's take on this issue will certainly come from a unique, invaluable position.
Caitlyn wasn't surprised when Vi's response to her taking her aside after breakfast one day was "I want in". A Violet that never shrunk away from a challenge. One of the things the two of them share.
As they pull up to the grimy wooden structure connecting the prison to the outside world, Steb nimbly steps out of the boat with not even a flare of his gills. He gives the rope a brisk tug and the small craft actually rocks for the first time as it shimmies into a flush parallel with the jetty. The rest of the team file efficiently out onto solid ground, walking ahead as Steb expertly secures the rope to the mooring. Vi watches him work, at least ostensibly. There is a distance in those eyes that seems to leach the blue out of the grey.
Cait makes sure to brush two fingers gently over Vi's freshly wrapped arms. Lingering. An enquiry.
"Yeah. Yeah I'm good." Vi says with a sharp nod. She rolls her broad shoulders slightly. "Let's get this done."
Cait nods, stepping out onto the jetty which creaks softly under the feet of her assembled team. The engineers are already striding forward to greet them.
"Sherrif Kiramman." The eldest of the trio says primly, holding out his hand.
"Guildmaster Darius" she also extends a hand for the man to shake. A brusque pump later and he is leading the group of officers forward, narrating what he has identified in the last hour or so that he has been there.
She spares a glance back at Vi. She looks tense and not exactly thrilled to be here but the grim determination in her gaze reassures Cait.
Let's get this done, indeed.
//
Vi is fine. Honestly.
She hasn't missed Cait's glances. The tender look in that crystalline eye of hers. In some ways it makes her feel cared for. In others it makes her feel like an impediment. That is something she refuses to be. She won't drag her team down like a peice of faulty equipment. Her parents and theirs before them had been miners after all. She was taught where that could lead.
Not that there is likely to be such stakes here. It is a pretty routine inspection. In, look around, take notes, write report, let the council make up it's mind. Simple.
She told Cait she could handle this. It is with an odd sort of satisfaction that she is ending up proving herself right so far.
She seeks out her girlfriend's hand in the elevator only to steady her. The damn thing was so prone to judders even back when she lived here and she can't imagine the savage rage of the creature that was once her foster father had helped. She resolutely focuses on the commentary provided by the engineers. Cait's astute questions. The input from the rest of the team.
The fact Vi doesn't even look at the dial tracking them plummeting down into the stale guts of the prison that has digested thousands of dreams and better natures in it's time is just attentiveness.
"Well of course it's out of the question to continue to house people down here" Cait is telling Guildmaster Darius as he fiddles with his neat moustache "would you say it could be adequately secured against damp should records or susceptible equipment need to be stored here?"
Vi can almost feel Cait's righteous anger. Even at her worst as Commander in their months apart, the idea of using these cells for their intended purpose had revolted her.
Vi takes in the frayed red boundary line painted on the floor, a measure to remind visitors that inmates were dangerous untouchables, as she traces it with her footsteps. The cells that should have been called cages, so little privacy and protection from the bone chilling draught they provide are no less dank for having been uninhabited for months. She feels gooseflesh rising even under the long, insulated sleeves of the Twin Cities Police winter uniform.
It briefly occurs to her that one of these cells was probably hers. She chances a look through the bars. It is hard to tell, honestly. Tally charts are hardly a distinctive form of customisation for convicts.
Even the stains on the floor are part of the uniform.
With a slightly prolonged blink, Vi wills her mind back to the task. A sniff, a roll of her muscular shoulders and she is back among the evaluation and inspection team.
Back on the right side of the bars.
A free person who will sleep tonight not on a narrow threadbare cot but on soft sheets next to a tall window she can open any time she pleases and a woman who fills her with warmth and love.
She is absolutely fine.
//
"Are you sure you don't want me to come with while you get it seen to?" Vi asks the man she has come to see as her father in law for the third time this morning.
"No need to trouble yourself, Violet." He tells her with as much affable hand waving as his currently splintered right forearm allows. That, he had decided, has put paid to his horseriding days. "I'll have the motorcar drop me off and collect me and after that...I may swing past the bookshop for a while."
Vi shoots him a wry smile, then glances around the library he still uses as a study. The best doctors never retire after all. At least according to Tobias Kiramman. "You read all of these already, huh?"
"Well...not exactly" he conceeds "but there are worse vices, no?"
Vi nods in full agreement. Doesn't she just know it?
"There is something you can do for me though, speaking of. Would you mind putting some of these down in the basement?" He indicates several boxes. Anything that Cassandra had kept in her office that Caitlyn hasn't wanted to put in hers. Tobias isn't quite decided on what to do with it yet. One of the pitfalls of having such a huge basement. It does terrible things for a hording habit. Still, Vi would never have thought of suggesting parting with it. What she wouldn't give to have all her own mother's stuff to store down there.
"No problem. See you later." She crosses the room to test out the weight of the boxes even before Tobias is out of the door.
"Only if you're free." He calls back over his shoulder.
Caitlyn isn't going to be back for hours. Besides, there are only eight boxes. Hardly an all day job! She enjoys making herself useful around the mansion. She would hardly need to bother the maid with something so basic even if it wasn't her day off anyway.
"No problem, honestly!" She replies.
//
Vi places the penultimate and heaviest box next to it's fellows on the dusty floor of one of the basement's five storerooms. This family really doesn't throw anything away, huh? she thinks with a smirk.
She turns back to the doorway, where the last of the belongings she has been asked to move stands propping open the door. She hefts it onto her hip like some washer-woman and makes her slightly lopsided way back into the room.
SLAM The door closes with an abrupt metallic boom that rings sharply through the room.
"Fuck! Shit!" Vi's head snaps to face the source of the slam with an unpleasant jolt. The light suddenly dimms, the barred window in the metal door takes on more definition.
Stacking the box she mercifully hasn't dropped in surprise on the pile, Vi turns back towards the entrance. Leaning down on the handle, she pushes the slab of a door, so inelegant compared to the rest of the house.
It doesn't budge.
Vi's scalp prickles.
She tries again. A rapid rattle.
Nothing.
Her full weight and force this time. Perhaps the door shifts slightly in it's frame but not enough to threaten it's integrity.
Something stirs behind her ribs. A creature who's sleep had grown distinctly lighter in the days since...
Oh no! Don't think about it! Don't you dare!
Too late.
She is trapped in an empty house.
Trapped underground behind locked doors.
First thing they'll do is look for me. It's fine. They know where I am. Just stop it!
She makes a valliant effort but rationality receedes like a stone chucked into a murky harbour.
The bars on the windows lengthen. The room narrows. Mildew laced droplets replace the dry dust gathered in the corners.
There she is again.
Fists form out of her hands in a motion that feels as familiar as breath. They start trembling.
It takes moments for them to be flung at the door. The full force sending stinging shock waves through her knuckles.
Out.
She needs to get the fuck out!