The next few weeks passed by without incident. Bruises faded along with memories, until your fear and worries were muted and dreamlike; think too long, and they slipped out of your grasp. Still, a constant sense of paranoia underlined your thoughts.

You hadn't forgotten the brief encounter woman - the thief. Viktor's notebook never turned up. Neither of you said anything about the matter, as if merely mentioning it could speak it into existence. Like maybe, just maybe, one day it would turn up.

One constant worry that nagged at you was that she'd seen you, seen your face. You knew that without your name, without your address, she couldn't do anything, but you fretted anyway. Her face had become blurred in your memory, and you could only remember faint feelings that hung around her like smoke; Scars and shadows and metal in place of skin.

Along with your ceaseless worries, the rain stayed stubbornly constant, too, shrouding the city in gloom and grey, nourishing shadows and suffocating sunlight.

You and Viktor still met regularly as you could to work regardless, though had abandoned your secluded lookout over the city for spots indoors. Still, as he and Jayce became closer to the unveiling of their Hexgate project, there were more late meetings he had to attend, more deadlines he had to meet, and you found your meetings being pushed back to next week, then the week after that.

It was during one of these quiet periods that you received the note.

You had been kept late at a meeting, and by the time you returned home the sky was black and spangled with stars. As you neared your door, you noticed a slip of paper protruding from underneath. It's placement looked intentional - not like it had just happened to have been blown underneath. You bent down and picked it up, a frown creasing your lips as your read.

You reread it again. Something was off, though you couldn't quite place it. On your third reread, it clicked: he'd misspelled his name.

You grinned and made a mental note to remind him to remember to sleep - and probably tease him about it.

Just to double check you hadn't somehow missed anything, you cast another glance down the hallway: empty.

The clock above your kitchen counter told you it was nearing nine o'clock at night. How long had the note been there? And why hadn't he just waited there for you to return? But then again, you'd been out for the majority of the evening. A few hours were a long time to be waiting.

'Important' the note had said. What qualified as his kind of 'important'? Your mind raced to come up with worst-case-scenarios. Before they could escalate into anything more, you made your mind up.

You folded the note into your pocket, dipped into your apartment, and replaced your light day-jacket for something heavier and darker.

You paused at the door, hand hovering over the knob, then turned towards the kitchen. After a rummage through the drawers (and a stab in the palm from a fork), you retrieved a knife. It wasn't anything lethal - not even a bread knife; just something to cut food with. You doubted it could even break skin.

You knew that the worst thing you could find on Piltover's streets after dark was the occasional sleepy drunk, and all this worry was probably all over nothing, and Viktor probably just wanted to have a rant about something stupid Jayce had done in the lab that day. But, still.

Better safe than sorry.

Tucking it into the inside pocket of your jacket, you locked the door behind you. As you started down the corridor, you happened glance over your shoulder. A flash of blue disappeared around the corner. You blinked, looked back-

Nothing.

Maybe you were just tired. You stifled a yawn into the crook of your elbow. Whatever it was he wants, you thought, it better be worth missing a nap.

Shrugging away the prickly feeling that danced along your spine, you continued down the corridor and into the outside. Into the dark.