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"... never too late to build something new. Someone worth building it for."
Jinx's eyes drift to the tiny monkey toys. He sees her thinking. He holds his breath, his hands on the Z-Drive, ready to pull it again. He is not going to give up on her. However many times, he can take it.
She stands there on the brink, so still, so lost, and even though he can try to pull her back, he does not. Years ago, he tried to pull her away from a dangerous place too, and it only made things worse.
Some part of him knows she just needs the time.
She has to take that step back, herself.
And finally, she does.
Or rather, she sits down. Sinks low, and buries her face against her knees, her back curled. He can feel, rather than see, the utter exhaustion of her thin shoulders. Her blue hair is much shorter now, messy on the nape of her neck, and he wonders again what has happened to her while he was gone.
He hesitates, and takes the smallest of steps towards her, his hand still hovering over the Z-Drive.
She does not move.
Another step.
Yet another.
The silence stretches, as he manages to reach her. Closer now, he sees that her shoulders are shaking in silent sobs. His heart twists.
He is afraid to touch her. Afraid to scare her. But he decides to sit down, next to her, facing the abyss below.
He can't take away Jinx's pain. He knows that.
But the least he can do is stay there with her.
-
After what may have been forever - (Ever wish you can just stay in one moment?) - she looks up, sniffling. Her tears are massive streaks of purple, and her eyes are redder than before, but there is something close to peace now on her face, and Ekko releases the last bit of breath he has been holding.
"What is ... that?"
It takes him a moment to realize she is asking about his Z-Drive. He sees her eyeing the monkey toys behind the glass again.
Of course.
"It's - a long story." He almost chuckles. "You might not believe me."
He still sometimes wonders if he dreamt it all. That world that seems to glimmer and shine, in his memories.
But the Z-Drive is proof that he hadn't.
"Try me," Jinx says, a calmness to her voice that he has not heard in a long time. Not in this Jinx, from this world.
And this Jinx is not Powder. Not the Powder from his childhood, and not the Powder from the other universe; she never will be, he sees that now.
But she's also not the Jinx she thinks she is. The Jinx he once gave up on. She's more. He has to show her that, somehow.
So he tells her. He tells her all.
-
Jinx closes her eyes. She imagines the world that Ekko has painted for her. The undercity that opens up to blue skies. Vander and Silco, getting along. Mylo with his ridiculous mustache. Claggor, wearing a fucking bow tie. (She laughs at that thought, a bark of a laugh, a genuine laugh, that comes from deep in her belly.)
But then she thinks of Vi, who is dead in that world. And she thinks of the Powder who has accepted that. Who still lives and goes on living, in spite of that.
And she thinks of Isha, and whether she is in that other world, happy and alive. But her other self might never have known Isha, or even if she had, it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't be as special.
Her Isha came to her in some of her darkest times. And gave her so much.
There are some things you just can't exchange for anything else.
For the first time ever, thinking of Isha doesn't make her feel empty. It still hurts, but it hurts a little less.
Jinx looks down at her hands, at her chipped blue nails.
"Why'd you come back?" she asks Ekko.
"I didn't belong there," he says, after a pause. "I belong here. And they need me here."
He looks at her, his brown eyes gentle.
"They need you, too."
She flinches. She glances away.
"I'm not who they want me to be," she says quietly.
"Of course not," he says. She throws a sideway glare at him, out of reflex, and he just smiles. "You're who you want to be."
He shifts his legs and half of his time-reversing device slides onto her lap. She stares down at the glass case, and lightly traces the small familiar monkey with her finger. The monkey that is a relic of one of the worst nights of her life, yet also a reminder of who she was before she lost everyone, and perhaps even herself.
"You can be anything, Jinx."
Something stirs in her chest, and it takes her a moment to realize what it is:
Want.
She wants to believe him.
More importantly, she wants something that isn't just destruction or death.
Maybe there are other ways to break the cycle.
-
The following days go by in a blur.
There's a lot of work to do before the big day - planning, prepping, building. She doesn't care much for discussions and strategy talk, she leaves that to Ekko and Sevika, and it allows her to do her work in peace. There's a buzz in the air now, in Zaun. And there's a buzz inside her too, like electricity, thrumming under her skin. She hasn't felt it in a long, long time. She even hums to herself as she works, like the old days. She still hears from her old friends in her head, but not in a bad way. They're not there to hurt her, they simply keep her company.
At long last, everything is ready. It's the last night now, before the unknown of tomorrow, and there's a strange calm that hangs over them all.
A strange calm for Jinx, as well.
She chooses this night to leave her little sanctuary, which she supposes after tomorrow won't be her hidden refuge any longer. She isn't as bothered by that as much as she thought she would be, somehow.
She nods at familiar faces in passing, but there is one face she seeks.
-
Ekko has just finished speaking with Scar when he notices Jinx there, a lone figure looking up at the mural. He led her here a few days ago when they had a rally, but there were more of the others around, and she hung back in the shadows. His people have not rejected her - he heard what she did to get them out of Stillwater - but he suspects she still feels uneasy.
He joins her at her side, experiencing a funny sense of deja vu.
"What was her name?" Jinx asks.
She nods up at the right upper corner of the mural.
He is surprised. He thought she would have forgotten; it feels like eons ago when they faced each other in the Piltover cargo ship.
"Eve," he tells her.
"I thought she was Vi and I... snapped." She is quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry."
He swallows. Nods. "I know."
He is quiet as well. Now that he has finished telling her the story of his adventures, he finds he is at a loss of what to say with Jinx. She is a stranger, still, in a lot of ways. All those years lost between them, years that shaped the both of them into who they are now. Years he wasn't there for her.
"I'm sorry, too," he says. "I shouldn't have given up on you."
She scoffs. Shakes her head with a wry smile. "It's not up to you to save everyone, Ekko."
He returns with a smirk of his own, remembering her old moniker for him.
"Well, you don't need my saving now," he tells her. "You saved yourself."
She looks back at him, her red-violet eyes deep with an emotion he doesn't quite understand. But the next thing he knows, she has thrown her arms around him.
Startled, he staggers a step back, but Jinx still holds onto him. He relaxes, and tentatively, then surely, folds his arms around her as well.
It's different from holding Powder in his arms. With Powder it was the embrace of a goodbye. With Jinx, it almost feels like it could be a new beginning.
They can start over.
-
"Always with you, sis."
Jinx pulls the blue orb from her sister's gauntlet, and then she is falling. Down, down, down.
Time seems to slow. They say memories flash through your mind before you meet your end, and it seems to do that for her. Vander, her mother, her father... Mylo, Claggor... Silco, Isha... They're all waiting for her, in the darkness, and she is so close. If she lets go she can see them. If she lets go, all of it will be over, and she can finally rest. It'd be so easy.
But...
You can be anything, Jinx.
With a sudden burst of clarity, she realizes she doesn't want it to be over. Not yet.
BOOM.
-
Orange embers, floating into the night. They look like stars in a galaxy, disappearing - or perhaps simply moving on. Ekko pulls out the paper in his pocket, where he has written a name. He folds it carefully, then lights it up, and watches the breeze carry it away. He imagines it reaching a place he cannot.
Footsteps behind him.
One, two, three.
"Still can't forget her, huh?"
He lowers his head and chuckles.
"She's pretty unforgettable."
The girl standing behind him smirks under the shadow of her hood.
"Then go back to her. Find some way. You've done your job here, Boy Savior."
He shakes his head and gets up on his knees.
"No," he says. "My place is here."
The boy comes to a stop before the girl, and they face each other as if at an impasse. The girl breaks her gaze first, reaching up to tug at the purple streaks in her hair.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asks him.
"Yes."
"But what about..." She juts her chin towards everything laying before them.
He shrugs. "Our tree will live. And they will have Scar. That's enough."
"I... might never come back here again, you know."
He doesn't tell her that he doesn't quite believe that. He wonders if she even truly believes it herself.
Instead, he tells her, "Sometimes taking a leap forward means leaving a few things behind."
She ponders on that.
"Alright," she says, finally. "Here's to taking a leap forward."
She reaches out a hand. He takes it in his, and he shakes it.
End