A/N:

Them spontaneous Barcelona trips with my parents...

I'm sorry for no update or no news; I've simply not have time with it ^^' I hope you didn't suffer too much in my absence, nor will hang me for being this late with the next chapter.

CHAPTER 3:1

There was a knock on his door that night.

Jayce didn't react until the visitor knocked once again and stiffly rose up from his seat by his workbench. His hair was a mess out of pulling in it too many times and he was wearing his favorite pair of loose-fitting sweatpants and a black t-shirt.

"I'm on my way!" he called out. In the darkness of his apartment, he checked the time on the clock he had put up on the wall. Ever since Claire had malfunctioned, his sense of time had gone cuckoo and he didn't even bother with proper dining routines.

It's half past two, he thought and frowned. Who could want to visit a lonely, Piltoveran citizen at such an hour? Vi, perhaps?

His features turned grim as her name passed his mind. It reminded him of the terribly embarrassing happening that had occurred a couple of hours earlier, when he had followed Vi into the restricted area of the City Hall. Jayce couldn't blame the whole incident on her, since she impossibly could have predicted it to happen, but he still held a slight grudge against her for being so completely humiliated in public. The guards had seized him by arms and legs and practically thrown him out of the courtyard. He hadn't even been able to meet Caitlyn and Vi had been nowhere near to help him out.

Theodore.

Jayce shivered involuntarily as his fingers etched onto his door handle. The metal was cold beneath his touch, but not even close to as frozen he felt when he thought about the eerie coincidence. The police officer's smile was still clear as day in the back of Jayce's head and, to his utter abhorrence, scared him whenever his mind thought to wander away into the course of the day.

Whoever it was outside his door, he or she started getting impatient and tried to ring the bell. Unfortunately, the doorbell to his apartment had gotten out of function with the temporary "death" of Claire, who managed all of the techmaturgical object in his home, and it had taken him quite the time and many arguments to convince his superstitious landlord – an old woman who lived on the ground floor with a lesser army of furry cats – that it wasn't his fault that he couldn't pay his bills.

Though she has stopped harassing me for a while now, oddly enough, he realized. Since a couple of days ago. It's probably her outside now, complaining that I walk too loud or something. Jayce took a deep breath before opening the door.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Hathaway, but I told you that I'm unable to..." His voice trailed off as he saw who it was.

Caitlyn looked up at him in momentarily confusion before pushing him into the darkness of his apartment. Jayce almost lost his footing, but in the last second he regained his balance and angrily glared at her.

"What are you doing here?" he exclaimed irritably and turned on the lights. It was usually also managed by Claire – making him used to automatically functioned lightning – but fortunately enough still worked. The two of them squinted in the suddenly very well-lit room and Caitlyn grimaced. "Explain!"

"Shh, not so loud!" she hissed and gestured for him to calm down. "I mean no harm."

As soon as Jayce saw her in plain light, he couldn't help but feel concerned for her; she looked extremely exhausted and gaunt. Her beautiful eyes were still sharp and analyzing but something was dampening their otherwise so powerful gaze, and her hair was in a messy ponytail hanging down her left shoulder. The Sheriff was still armed and dressed formally, and he guessed that she had gotten here immediately after she was free of duty at the City Hall.

"Caitlyn," sighed Jayce and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I thought you never wanted to meet me again," he stated dryly to his own surprise. He had never felt so annoyed with her presence and a thought slowly occurred to him, but the inventor quickly brushed it away. Foolishness, he thought bitterly, you are not that vain.

Caitlyn soaked her lips before speaking. "I'm sorry for earlier; I just had a... minor breakdown," she said honestly and then frowned. "It's just that there was a lot going on at the time and I was feeling pressured and... well, there's something I got to ask you."

He raised an eyebrow. "And that could be...?" asked Jayce monotonically. It still pained in retrospect; he had begged for her help and finally confessed his... tender feelings for her, but she had just denied him so ruthlessly without even an explanation. It is now, after several weeks of sleepless nights, that she comes and apologize, he noted coolly. How distasteful of her.

"I came to tell you-" she interrupted herself, correcting the sentence, "-I came to ask of you..." Caitlyn averted her gaze and clenched her fists. "I-I wonder if you..."

She sounds terrified, realized Jayce and waited albeit impatiently. Or nervous. Maybe embarrassed. All three would fit perfectly into the situation. He was tempted to cross his arms and stamp his foot repeatedly into the floor, but decided not to, since Caitlyn still was armed and was – at times – pretty trigger-happy. His theory from earlier came creeping back at him with renewed strength, but Jayce ignored it yet again. He decided not to risk further aggravating Caitlyn and stood silently, watching her every move... which wasn't much to view. Seconds ticked away as the Sheriff seemed to be contemplating different choices, as well as calculating the consequences of each option. Finally, she opened her mouth to continue.

"Jayce," she said commandingly.

Jayce straightened and met her gaze. So she was scared after all. "What is it?"

She took a deep breath. "Are you see?" asked Caitlyn.

"If I'm 'see'?" he replied and couldn't hold back a laugh. "Cait, is this a joke?" he wondered venomously. "It's in the middle of the night and you come to my door, invading my home and asking if I'm 'see'?" Jayce pointed at his both eyes. "I can see you very clearly."

"What are you talking about? I was talking about the letter, 'C'!" hissed Caitlyn and frowned. "And what's up with you all of a sudden? Why are you so snappish?"

Jayce pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "What do you think?"

She pressed her lips together and exhaled through her nostrils. Her green-blue eyes locked with his as she then spoke.

"If you want it that way." Caitlyn crossed her arms over her chest. "Show me the bit of the box you have in your possession."

Jayce raised an eyebrow. "And how so that you want to admit that it exists now?" he asked suspiciously and searched his pocket for the shard. The cold metal started pulsating beneath his touch and he gripped it even harder before pulling out his hand and showing Caitlyn the broken piece. "Here," he said and held it out for her to see. "This is the only thing I found."

She took a step closer and hesitantly reached for the fragment. He could see how nervous she seemed to be when he let her take the shard in her own, small palm. The blue light increased in strength and shone up her tired countenance.

"It... it feels like a creature," she whispered in awe. "Almost as if this silly piece of synthetic material is alive."

Jayce aimed to take it back but Caitlyn evaded his hand with her own. "Cait-"

She flung herself around his neck and hugged him tightly. The force of her body clashing into his was surprising, but he quickly regained his calm and awkwardly hugged her back. Her hair smelled like the fresh breeze of the night and dirt from the street, but he didn't mind it. Jayce had gotten used to all of Caitlyn and her habits and it still ached in his heart – and perhaps somewhere south – somewhat terribly, when he felt her hot breathing against his ear and the soft clawing of her cleanly cut nails as they made marks in his flesh.

"Cait...?" he tried and swallowed. "Hey, is everything alright? Something disturbing you on work? Your mood is changing faster than the sea."

Damn... she's so fragile and irresistible like this, thought Jayce and kissed the crown of her head. I really shouldn't care as she made it clear that she wants nothing more than sex and company to eat with; I'm not that guy. I want something long-lasting, something that can be described as a real relationship. I can't stand being pushed and hushed aside public eyes, and I got to make her understand that. She can't eat the cake and keep it... but I don't exactly do anything to show her the boundaries for that.

She didn't reply but pulled him closer to her. Jayce felt her rapidly beating heart race in a speed matching his own, and what he normally would take as a sign for her to be in need, he felt that something was off with this. Caitlyn had shown signs of fear earlier and had yet to explained why.

"You don't want to explain?" he asked quietly, his voice muffled by her hair. Jayce caressed her back and neck and realized that she was all frozen. "Cait? You're scaring me a bit with this..."

Jayce had meant the last as a joke but Caitlyn didn't react. He could feel a sharp protrusion of the shard bury itself into his neck, but ignored the pain. Instead, he decided to wait her out. Whatever was so dreadful for one of the toughest woman he knew to be unable to talk in fear, must be something overwhelming for a normal citizen like him. Yet again he felt the discrimination in their statuses and different thoughts flew past his mind: would Caitlyn have announced our relationship in public if I was someone else than another boring inventor? Would she be less "ashamed" of me? Or... is nobody good enough for the Sheriff of Piltover?

"Caitlyn." Jayce swallowed nervously and intertwined his fingers into her hair. "You do know... how much I care for you, right?"

"I care for you as well," she immediately replied, to his surprise. Caitlyn abruptly recoiled from him and backed into his kitchen, opening a window meanwhile. "I really do... and that's why I have to do this for you."

Before he could react, she threw out the fragment through the window. Caitlyn drew forth her rifle in lightning speed and fired away a total of three shots, each and every one of the bullets resulting in a burst of blue light as they hit the shard. Jayce watched in petrified horror as Caitlyn blew up the piece of the ancient object, the key of his progressing invention.

I can't believe my eyes, I can't believe what I just saw.

"Caitlyn," he numbly said and tried to recollect himself. "Tell me that was just a stupid plaything, that it was just a joke, that what you just destroyed wasn't the thing I need to defeat Viktor."

"I understand that you are furious-" she started but Jayce cut her off.

"What did you do!" he screamed and swiped with his arm down the counter. Glasses and plates flung into the ground with an almost deafening sound but he didn't care. Jayce walked across the splitter, ignoring the small cuts in his feet. "'Furious' is barely grazing the emotional inferno I'm experiencing at the moment!"

Something looking like regret shaded Caitlyn's face for a second before disappearing beneath the well-rehearsed, polite-but-cold expression of a police officer. She was still wearing her boots and could easily walk back into the hallway. He followed her.

"You can't get to Viktor, you get that?" she said and hung the rifle over her shoulder. "If you do that, you'll be branded as a traitor of Piltover and banished from here for good!"

"Why?" exclaimed Jayce. He turned to stare into the darkness of the early morning where his hope had literally faded away. "Why!" he repeated, more angrily and clenched his fists.

Caitlyn rested her hand on the door handle and opened it halfway. She bit her lip before looking back at him and their eyes locked.

"Because someone wants you away," she replied silently. "I can't tell you much but know to give up, Jayce. Even if you do succeed making something dangerous with the fragment, Piltover will eliminate your citizenship and declare you an outlaw."

"And explain to me, just why," he said, getting even more aggravated, "just why, would they do that? It was stolen from me! I have all rights to retrieve it! It should even be your job to help me since the people assigning me to this mission was the government!"

Caitlyn sighed. "Jayce, don't you understand? Everything was classified. Nobody knows anything and those who do don't want to show themselves in bad light. How would it look if whole Valoran would know that the government of Piltover is giving out dangerous, untested objects to civilians? Our city won't go through with that, absolutely not. They'd rather have you declared a madman."

Jayce didn't know what to say and stayed quiet. So many thoughts were swirling in his head and he had no idea how to put two and two together. His emotions and logic was clashing into each other, not knowing what was the right thing to say or think. Everything was so much more difficult than he had thought it to be but still he couldn't let it pass like that.

"I won't give up," he simply said. "Not for anything will I let a crazy cyborg let loose the artifact's powers across the world." Jayce soaked his lips. "This is so much larger than just the pride of a city, Cait, this is about the safety of our tomorrows."

"Jayce-"

"Cait," he interrupted and held her eyes. "Don't talk to me anymore, please."

"But Jayce, they'll declare you a traitor! You got to stop with this!"

He gave her a halfheartedly wave and finally averted his gaze. "I don't care... just leave, will you?"

He heard her gasp for air and interrupted her once again. "I'll think about it, alright? I will, I promise," he said, holding up his hands in a defeated gesture.

Jayce thought she would say something else – mention anything else about the government or even threaten him again – but she left, closing the door behind her, and the apartment fell silent again. His knees almost buckled beneath him and he gave up a groan of frustration before finding his way into the bathroom to tend to his wounds.

What did he know about the hooded observer sitting nonchalantly on his bed, having listened to his and Caitlyn's whole conversation. Or that the person quietly slipped through an opened window while sheathing a long, razor-sharp dagger that glimmered viciously in the azure light of another piece of fragment.