Immortalized | Viktor - arcane

One Final Proposal

Rose arrived early at the lab the next morning. She felt as if she had slept well for the first time in years. She was excited. She was ready to tell Viktor about her moving away from the Medarda estate, and had so many questions to ask him about his cure.

To her surprise she found him just as the lift doors opened, standing ready on the other side for the lift down.

"Viktor." Rose said sounding pleasantly surprised. "I was just looking for you."

Viktor didn't look quite the same as he did the night before. His hair was disheveled and he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. Rose imagined he had been working through the night on his new discovery, preparing to present it. Though, he did not appear quite as excited about his discovery as he did the night before.

At the peir he had been smiling widely, too excited to speak or explain his discovery. He looked healthy. He hadn't even been using his crutch. Now his crutch was tucked back under his arm, as if it had never left.

"There's so much I need to tell you—" she started before noticing the tin can Viktor held in his hand, along with a book tucked under his other arm. "What's that?" She asked quickly, pointing to the can and the book. "Is that what you've been working on?"

Viktor blinked slowly at her as if deciding how to answer before he shook his head. "No, it's not." He told her.

"Well you have to tell me how you did it." Rose said with a smile. "I've been thinking about it all morning, seeing you run, it was incredible."

She thought he might smile or nod at her at the very least but he just blinked. It was as if something had been drained from him. She narrowed her eyes slightly confused, she had been watching his health deteriorate over the years, but this was different.

"Are you alright?" She asked.

He shook his head slightly. "Listen, Rose." He begun carefully. "I've made a mistake."

She scoffed. "How could fixing your condition be a mistake?"

He only answered with silence as his eyes fell to the floor between them.

"Oh." Rose said quietly, before taking a step away from him. Viktor wanted to reach out, to close the space between them, but he stayed rooted in his place, he had to follow through.

He had decided that morning that she deserved better than him. He thought when he fixed his leg, he could be what she needed, spry and strong, his health would no longer burden them. But he had gotten carried away. He should have stopped while he was ahead. After fixing his leg, he felt amazing, like he could finally take a full breath for the first time in years, he thought he'd given himself a long life ahead of him. But his second attempt only made things worse.

Perhaps if Skye hadn't wandered into the lab at the wrong time, things would still be different, he would still be better, stronger. How could he be with Rose now, with Skye's blood on his hands. He couldn't bring himself to admit what had happened to Rose or Jayce. Hextech had killed somebody, Heimerdinger had been right—they should have listened.

Viktor should have taken accountability but he didn't, he only swept up Skye's remains into a tight little tin can. He couldn't even bring himself to destroy the Hexcore. He wanted to, after what it had done, but it had saved him, he couldn't destroy that—but it knew. Somehow it had sensed him raise the stool above his head in defiance, prepared to destroy it as Heimerdinger suggested, and it had punished him for it. When he woke in the morning, he felt worse than he ever had before. Like the Hexcore had accelerated his disease as punishment.

"You mean us." Rose muttered quietly.

"All of it." Viktor confirmed vaguely. If anyone had been around to hear him, they would have recognized how doubtful he sounded, how unsure. But Rose was too hurt to notice, all she heard were his words, nothing more.