Chapter 6

It took awhile to realize that I was awake. I had drifted for awhile, floating through deep slumber with no grasp of the world around me, when suddenly sensation returned. I felt as though I was surrounded by a thick fog, impossible to see or hear or get an idea of location, but my sense of touch disagreed. I could dimly feel fabric, both over and underneath me, cushioning me where I lay. I tried to grab it, to anchor myself to something, but for a time my hands simply wouldn't obey, their protests coming to my tired brain in the form of weak stabs of dull pain, the kind that talks a big talk but doesn't lead to anything more.

I made an effort to focus, an attempt to push away the fog in my head, and bit by sluggish bit the world returned to me. I saw light, unobtrusive and plain, from a lamp overhead and slightly to my right. I saw a blur of white cloth around me, which I slowly realized fit the description my fingers had been reporting back. Sheets. I was in a bed somewhere. My muscles ached, but I forced my head to turn. First to the left, where I saw a plain-looking white wall, most of its surface area taken up by a large window with a view of uptown Piltover and a clear blue sky outside. A dark blue chair was placed next to me, pointed towards my bed, and at the head of my bed sat a large machine, its round monitor presenting a steady flow of information scrolling almost too fast to read. My eyes narrowed as a strange sensation periodically overcame me, but with some more focus I realized I was hearing the thing beep at a constant and steady rhythm. Once I remembered I had ears, I became slowly aware of the soft jazz wafting through the room, sitting in the air like a cloud of sound.

"Turn that off," I mumbled almost too soft to hear, my voice cracking as I put it to use again.

"About time you started complaining," I heard a familiar voice replied, "Heavens forbid you got a bump on the head and discovered good taste… or class."

Recognition dawned on me a little too slowly, but when it did, I smiled. I turned my head the other way, towards the sound of the voice, and saw Caitlyn sitting up next to me… in her own bed.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Caitlyn said softly, a warm smile on her face as she watched me with friendly eyes.

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I had questions, but my head still felt like it was filled with a thick fog. I looked her over, and immediately realized she was bedridden, evidently due to the thick purple cast on her left leg up to the knee, although the long white bandage spiraling around her right arm to the elbow probably contributed as well. She wore a white hospital gown with small blue polka dots on it, and had in one hand a well-worn paperback book. I could just see past her to a small table on the other side of her bed, where her purple hat and a teacup sat. Judging by the lack of steam rolling up from the teacup, it was likely empty. I looked down at myself, and saw a similar gown covering me along with clean white sheets. I tried to get a good look at my injuries, but my body refused to cooperate, responding to any attempt to move with aches, pains, throbs, or some combination of the three. I turned my head back to her and noticed the title of the book read "In Bed With The Opposition" and featured a woman with long brown hair entirely too close to a man who was undoubtedly more muscular and gorgeous than Garen on one of his 'rugged' kicks. "Romance novels?" I asked skeptically. "Not mysteries?" It took more out of me than I expected to say all those syllables, and I coughed abruptly.

Caitlyn turned the book around in her hand, looking at the cover I had beheld, and smiled softly. "Mysteries are no fun when you solve them a quarter of the way through and watch the main character bumble about for the next twenty chapters," she commented, and then turned her eyes to me. "Hungry?" She put the book down and watched me as I continued to get my bearings, and while her smile had vanished, it was replaced with nothing but a casual calm.

I hadn't thought about it, but then again the act of thought had been difficult for the past few minutes. The fog in my head was slowly clearing, but I still didn't feel right. "Kinda," I said, again wincing as I tried to push myself up.

"Stop it," she chastised softly, "You'll tear your stitches."

Caitlyn reached over to the table and pushed a small button, one I hadn't noticed. A moment or so later a nurse opened the door into the room and looked at us with a measured concern. "Is everything alright?" She was a fairly plain-looking woman, with little to no makeup hiding her oval face from scrutiny. She had warm brown eyes and soft lips, along with lines around both that showed she wasn't a stranger to stress or to laughter. Her curly brown hair was cut short, and while she didn't have the figure of a model, it was clear she wasn't a slouch. Odds were she just took care of others more than she took care of herself.

I would have made a sarcastic sort of 'count my stitches and tell me what you think' comment, but the act of speaking took more out of me than I expected. "Could you be a dear and help Vi sit up?" Caitlyn asked, "And after that would you kindly bring something for her to eat now that she's awake?"

The nurse nodded and walked over to a small cupboard along the wall, retrieving a pillow that she set down next to my bed. She reached one arm under my back, eliciting a groan of pain from my tired throat, and helped me rigidly move so that I was sitting up. I felt something strange rub on my ankle as it happened, but was too tired to care. Once the nurse had propped my head up with the extra pillow she smiled. "What would you like to eat?"

"Steak," I grumbled.

"Perhaps some applesauce and milk," Caitlyn suggested, "Your stomach might not-"

"Steak," I grumbled again, putting as much defiance into the grumble as I could muster, which wasn't much at this point. "Rare." The word was added as much to make sure I didn't eat shoe leather as it was to spit in Caitlyn's eye. A pastime of mine, I might add.

The nurse nodded with a soft smile and left the room without another word. I sat like that for awhile, trying to remember what had happened through the night, but as the memories surfaced out of the fog in my head I quickly decided it was better to avoid thinking about it for now. Picturing getting slammed into the wall made me hurt by reflex, and before I thought too hard about it I turned my attention back to Caitlyn. She was back to reading her paperback in content silence, and I almost thought I saw her glance up and take note of my attention before she continued.

"How long?" I asked after a minute spent watching her read.

Caitlyn didn't look up at me, but I saw her eyes pause their scroll across the pages. "Two days," she said softly, her tone devoid of emotion. "Three for you."

I waited for her to say more, but she didn't, and after a moment's pause I saw her eyes resume reading. She was waiting for me to talk. I knew what she wanted to talk about, but she wanted me to bring it up. Dammit.

"You okay?" I asked.

She looked up this time, shooting me a 'are you really going to ask that' look, then sighed and looked over the top of her paperback at the cast. "I'll be fine. I'll just have to do more paperwork than usual for a few months."

"That's good," I said softly, "I'm glad."

No one spoke for a few minutes, and I opened my mouth only to close it wordlessly several times. I didn't know how to bring it up, how to start talking about something that seemed like it would only end badly. Eventually, I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes. "Cait, I'm-"

The door opened abruptly, and the nurse came in with a small tray bearing a white porcelain cup and a tall glass of milk. She unfolded a pair of small legs on the bottom of the tray and balanced it on the bed, the legs sitting on the bed an inch or two from either side of my hips. I didn't have the energy to complain, so I offered her a shallow nod and kept my eyes on the tray. Milk and a cup of applesauce. I'd save a glare for her later.

"Thanks," I said softly.

"It was my pleasure," she replied, "The steak will be up in a few minutes." That brought a smile to my face as she left the room, and made me slightly less apprehensive about the applesauce.

After the door closed I ate a spoonful of the applesauce. My tongue was far from impressed, but my stomach was grateful for the easy digestion work. I was about to take another when Caitlyn said "Were you about to say something, Vi?"

I paused, then let the spoon sit in the cup and looked back over at her. The spoonful of applesauce had helped my throat, but I suddenly didn't feel much like talking. "Yeah," I said slowly. "I, uh… I'm… sorry. For what I said last night… three nights ago. I didn't mean it." I coughed a little and fell silent, waiting for her to respond. I would have had more practice with crap like this if I didn't hate it so much.

Caitlyn looked down at her paperback for awhile. I wanted to say more, but words had trouble forming in my head. Jazz continued to fill in the background, and for once I was grateful that it did- I wasn't sure if I could handle the silence. Eventually she sighed, put a bookmark in the book, and set it down on the table next to her. She didn't look at me right away, instead she looked down at her casted leg, her expression unreadable. Not that I was great at reading her expression in the first case, I just often guessed she wasn't happy with me and was often right in situations like this. "Bradford told me what happened," she said.

I winced. He didn't hate me, or vice versa, but we didn't really get along. I didn't really remember what I said to him, but it probably wouldn't color me in a good light.

"You called him by his actual name instead of that stupid nickname," she said with the faintest whisper of a smile. "He kept mentioning that. He also said you were more worried about me and about making sure Gnar didn't escape than you were about yourself." This time she looked at me, and while she didn't seem happy, she had a sort of satisfaction about her. "You put yourself in harm's way just to make sure Gnar wasn't seriously injured. Why?"

I shrugged. "He changes back when he gets tired. No reason to get nasty."

Cait nodded slowly, as if trying to figure something out. "You showed restraint, and quite a bit of it. Why do that for Gnar, but not for Jenkins and Hurley?"

I blinked. "Who?"

"The two in the alley," Caitlyn said with a voice that wasn't angry or accusatory but still stayed serious.

"Scruffy and Patches?" I asked. Anger boiled up in my gut, anger I didn't have a way to displace, but I was too tired to let it show. After a moment, the anger seemed to fade, becoming nothing more than a nagging heat at the back of my mind. "They tried to scare people, Cait. Hurt them for money." Though I didn't intend it, there was an undertone of venom to my voice, a layer of disgust and hate that I couldn't keep from dripping off of the words. "They've had chances to change. They didn't."

I still couldn't read her expression. She looked down at the cast for some time, and I got the feeling she was turning pieces around in her head, looking for how they fit together. Solving me like a puzzle. Or maybe she was evaluating me, figuring out whether or not I was worth keeping around. I didn't like the direction either train of thought was headed.

After what felt like eternity but was only the length of a free-form saxophone solo according to the ambient music, Caitlyn looked at me with that unreadable gaze. "Vi, you are arguably the worst police officer I've ever worked with." She paused, measuring my reaction (a lethargic, dumbfounded look), and then continued, her voice even and matter-of-fact. "Your methods for dealing with criminals are barbaric, your respect for authority doesn't exist, and your approach to police work is the equivalent of hitting something until it works, which rarely produces more than extra work for me to clean up. You're stubborn, arrogant, violent, classless, thick-headed, disrespectful, and dangerous to everyone around you. Were I younger and less judicious when I first caught you, you wouldn't have made it to a trial, and I certainly wouldn't have offered to enlist you. Some days I still regret that decision."

I didn't look her in the eyes. I didn't say anything. Hell, even if I did start talking, I had no idea what words would come out.

"Despite all of that," she continued, "I can't for the life of me find a fault in your morals." I heard warmth in her voice, and looked up to see her smiling at me. "Your heart is in the right place, Vi, and while that doesn't account for everything, it means a lot more than you know. While I wish you did what was lawful more often of than not, you're still doing what's right. I haven't done anything to remove you from the force in these last few days, and I won't. Please do work on that 'restraint' issue, though. I quite like it, and I'm glad to see you possess it."

I… didn't know how to respond to that. I looked from Caitlyn down to the food on the tray. "I…" I said slowly, letting the sound hang in the air before I cut it off, letting it be washed away in the sound of the jazz. "…Thanks." I took a mouthful of the applesauce, letting it sit on my tongue. Either my head was playing tricks on me or the applesauce tasted a bit sweeter. A soft smile crept up on my face as I picked up the glass of milk and took a slow pull.

Then the door opened so abruptly that I spat the milk all over my shirt in surprise.

The nurse came in, a small white plate in her hand, and immediately looked apologetic when she saw the mess I'd made. "I'm very sorry, miss, you have visitors here to see you." At the cue in stepped Heimerdinger, who noticed my milk stain and immediately went to greet Caitlyn first while I cleaned myself up. After the professor came Jayce, another League champion and the self-proclaimed "Defender of Tomorrow". As hokey as it was, Jayce was the closest thing some people around here had to a real-life superhero. He had a chiseled jaw and slicked-back dark brown hair, a small tuft of it hanging over his forehead for that look that drove all the ladies (that weren't me) just craaaaazy for the guy. He had a bit of five-o-clock shadow going on, and he looked a bit tired, but otherwise held himself like nothing was wrong, which must have taken almost as much out of him as everything else he'd been doing. He wore an ornate leather jacket, comfortable and iconic, and in one hand was a massive hextech hammer, a weapon of his own invention that could transform at a moment's notice to fire powerful electrical blasts that were almost as awesome as my fists.

"What brings you here, Wonderboy?" I asked, using my nickname for him in the hopes it bugged him. It didn't seem to. Dang.

"Just in case," he said, his tone of voice showing the edges of exhaustion even if his posture and face hid it well.

I was about to ask 'just in case of what' when an orange blur flashed into the room, scampering around the beds and a few feet up the wall before he fell to a heap in the chair next to Caitlyn. Gnar's bulbous black eyes zoomed around until they found me, and his smile threatened to tear his head in half horizontally. "Vee!" he cheered, and unceremoniously bounced onto Caitlyn's bed, up into the air, and landed square on my stomach. Thankfully I hadn't eaten much, because in addition to flaring up the pain of several abdomen-located wounds he also made my stomach churn a bit. Jayce noticed the way my eyes bulged almost out of my sockets and picked up Gnar, sitting down in the chair next to my bed with the excited yordle in his lap.

"You're on yordle duty?" I asked Jayce as the nurse came up to my bed, placing a plate on the tray. It had bite-sized pieces of steak laid out on it, cooked rare. It smelled good enough, and I offered my thanks as the nurse left, keeping her attention on the prehistoric yordle she seemed more than sketchy about.

"Yeah," he responded with a smile, "With you two in here, I'm watching this guy and the city."

I grinned. "That explains why you look like someone chewed you up and spat you out."

His laugh was genuine, but tired. "A good night's sleep and a shave and I'll be good as new. How do you feel?"

"Worse than you look," I joked. "But I'll be up and at 'em in a day."

"You most certainly will not," Caitlyn interjected from the other bed.

"Like you'll stop me with that cast, Cait," I replied back, a devious smile slowly growing on my face. I could see Jayce's exasperation growing, but he wouldn't stop me either.

"…But I had a feeling you'd try," Caitlyn continued, "So I cuffed your leg to your bed."

It took a second for what she said to sink in, and when it did I immediately flung aside the covers, my eyes wide with surprise. Lo and behold, a silver cuff latched around my right ankle connected me to a bar on the bed. I swung my torso forwarding an attempt to reach for the cuff but white-hot pain erupted in my side, emanating like waves of fire from the deep gash in my side I had gotten from the rebar. I continued to strain until I couldn't bear the pain, then slumped back into the pillows, panting a bit from the exertion. "What gives?!" I asked angrily.

Caitlyn, who had been watching me try to free myself patiently, simply smiled. "You're too stubborn for your own good. You can get the cuffs removed when you're in good enough shape to get them off. I know you know how."

"What if I gotta use the bathroom?" I asked. I heard Jayce make a noise, probably somewhere between disgust and amusement, but he wasn't in range for a gut punch so I ignored him.

"I have a key," she said, "I'll let you up."

"I'll beat the hell out of you," I threatened.

Caitlyn took it with a whole bucket of salt and laughed. "In your condition? Vi, I know enough about fighting- from you, even- to make you regret that decision."

I frowned a petulant child's frown and crossed my arms, looking down at my meal of applesauce and steak pieces like I was trying to make it burst into flames through contact with my anger. "I could take you," I said bluntly, aiming for something threatening but sounding more like the last jabs of a kid who had been sent to time-out. Caitlyn's laugh grew richer. I wanted to argue, to hurl insults at her, but the strain of reaching for the cuffs took a lot out of me. Hell, she was right, I was in no condition to be doing anything that required getting out of bed. Not that she'd ever hear me admit it.

I noticed Gnar wriggling in Jayce's hands and looked over at him. The yordle was laser-focused on the pieces of meat on the plate in front of me. I reached over to take Gnar and sat him down on my bed next to me, well away from the cut on my side. He immediately started scrabbling towards the plate of meat, but I held it away from him until he calmed down. "Shaguvara!" He shouted as he pointed at the meat.

"Say please," I responded curtly. I expected a comment along the lines of 'didn't know that was in your vocabulary' from Caitlyn, but heard nothing.

"Shaguvara!" Gnar continued. "Roosh!"

"Behave, little buddy," I said sternly, and put the plate back down on the table slowly. Gnar looked like he was about to dive for it, but he remained in his spot. I picked up a piece of the steak and handed it to him, and it touched his fingers for a split second before it vanished into his gnashing teeth. I ate a piece of the steak myself, and was delightfully surprised to find it was actually pretty good, especially as far as hospital food was concerned. I handed Gnar a second piece, which fared about as well as the first, then noticed all three of the others had fallen silent, watching me feed the yordle. I blinked and glanced around at them. "What?"

"Upon further investigation," Heimerdinger began, his head barely eye level with the beds, "We deduced that Gnar here likely awoke from ice somewhere in the Freljord, and was later found and brought to Piltover by one of the expeditions going on up there. It seems he had a tantrum, underwent the explosive growth we've seen from him since, went on a bit of a rampage in the Academic district, and then found you. By that thread of logic, it's highly probable that Gnar exhibits signs of imprinting behavior around you, seeing as you were likely the first person to befriend him."

I remained silent, thinking about what that meant as I fed him another piece of steak. While the yordle behaved quite a lot like a talking puppy, he was still an intelligent (if culturally stunted and very young) yordle, and more importantly he had some dangerous anger issues. "That's kind of a problem," I said slowly, "We can't keep him with us, not after what he did to the place. So… where can he go?"

"We were discussing that yesterday, while you were asleep," Caitlyn said. "The best place for him seems to be at the Yordle Academy, where they can study him and try to learn more about him, or teach him our language."

"He's not safe around them," I responded, too tired to sound anything but calm. "And you can't just throw him in a cage."

Heimerdinger nodded as if he had been waiting for me to say that. "I am fairly certain I could design some sort of environment capable of containing Gnar for observation while also imitating a jungle region that he would feel comfortable within," he said as if it was a thought he'd rolled around in his head, "But the construction of such an environment, aside from being hazardous and expensive, will also take time."

Maybe I was grasping at straws, but I had the distinct feeling that this conversation was being led somewhere. "Well, he can't stay in the Academy, he can't stay with us, he can't stay here in the hospital." I gave Gnar another piece of steak.

Heimerdinger nodded again. I'd forgotten how much it made his hair shake. "While releasing him into the wild would likely be an effective way to neutralize the threat he would pose to the city, the opportunity for scientific discovery here is too monumental to squander. We need a way to keep a close eye on him and be able to contact and find him at a moment's notice to avoid letting him lose and losing track of him."

"I get the feeling you're getting to something…" I said slowly. I realized Gnar was looking at me with those big eyes again, so I gave him another piece of steak to placate him.

"We spoke with the Institute of War," Heimerdinger continued. "We told them we wish to hold a hearing to discuss whether or not Gnar can be instated as a champion."

That… was not what I was expecting. Then again, it made sense. Every champion of the League of Legends has a connection to the powerful summoners at the Institute of War, a way for them to call up a champion at a moment's notice to do battle. It would be a good way to keep Gnar in check until we could find a place for him to take up full-time residence, and it would give that crazy primal rage of his an outlet, hopefully making him less of a fuzzy time bomb when he wasn't on the rift.

I looked down at the yordle, still begging me with his eyes for more steak, and took a drink of my milk while I thought. Generally you had to be of a certain caliber to be considered as a champion, so that any idiot with a sword couldn't make the request and waste the Institute's time. That having been said, Gnar almost singlehandedly took out two of us. That didn't leave his fighting abilities in much question.

As the idea gained ground in my head, a grin slowly split across my face. I picked up Gnar, my hands under each of his armpits, and held him in the air as my smile widened. "Can you say 'top or feed', little buddy?"

Gnar raised his little hands and shook them wildly, excitement making him smile and wiggle in my arms. "Dah pah dee!"