#coffered

It’s not often she allows anyone to waste her time. And this? This would qualify, a reading of the annual report, as if she hadn’t authored half its passages. But the optics. Normally Vi would at least be here, suffering with her, kicking her ankle under their seats then acting like she hadn’t, passing her juvenile notes. Last year, Vi’s pen tapping at a crudely drawn arrow in the corner of her notepad: Look up!

On the ceiling, twenty feet overhead at least, paper taped to the marble: Hiya, cupcake :)

It was still unclear just how exactly she’d managed to do it. 

Behind Caitlyn’s shoulder—and how irritating was it that they continued to set the room with her back to the exit, meeting after meeting, despite years of requests to the contrary—there’s the sound of hinges, whispered conversation. The quick metronome of heels against the tile, nearer and nearer to Caitlyn’s spot in the middle of the row.

“Ma’am.” An envelope crosses into Caitlyn’s field of vision. “For you.”

“Thank you.” Caitlyn waits until the attendant has gone, then slices a finger through the gap. She reads it once, then again.

Caitlyn doesn’t excuse herself. Doesn’t rise and apologize to a series of knees, walk down the aisle with her spine straight, like there's all the time in the world. There isn't. There very much isn't. Caitlyn turns, plants a foot on her seat, and vaults herself out of the crowd, a tight run that flattens into a sprint the minute she hits hallway.

Blazing, late afternoon light strobes between the window frames as Caitlyn races down the stairs and careens toward the atrium. Skidding through someone’s mop job, she gasps an apology over her shoulder, sudsy bootprints trailing her out to the door. Sun like a slash to the face, when she opens it, as from the distant clocktower the bells begin to clang.

She can still make it.

Caitlyn takes off toward the river, cobblestones turning to the hollow thud of wood beneath her feet as she hits the marina. None of the flags are the one she's looking for, and it’s so crowded, salt and fish and speech and sweat, hundreds of travelers wrestling luggage down the docks through gull droppings and sailor spit. One of them eyes her as she stumbles to a stop in front of him, a hand vised around the cramp below her ribs.

“The ship from Bilgewater,” she gasps, and he points in answer just as she sees it, too, a feeling like a net’s been cut loose inside her as she spots the figure at the top of the gangplank, all the messy business of her heart spilling out from her chest. Vi.

She's so handsome in her traveler’s cloak, the hood thrown back so Caitlyn can see the braid twisted down the back of her neck. The deep crimson of the fabric accentuates the burn across her cheekbones, the dust of freckles there richer than when Caitlyn saw her last, weeks ago, now, weeks, and this time the pang of longing is so strong it propels Caitlyn up toward the ship.

And she sees it, the moment that, turning, Vi spots her in the crowd—the nothing that becomes recognition, becomes joy, becomes—relief. 

Caitlyn slams into her with enough force that Vi staggers backward, her pack thunking down beside her shoes so she can hold Caitlyn properly, a hand cupped at the base of her neck, the shake of her shoulders as she laughs, and gods, Caitlyn missed that laugh.

“Hiya, cupcake.”

The sails overhead have gone blurry. Caitlyn blinks up at them as she speaks. “You weren’t supposed to get back until tomorrow.”