Author's Note: Inspired by NamelyJamieArt's art on twitter (links are hard to work with on ffnet, but it's - twitter DOT com / NamelyJamieArt / status / 1491499072406138884 ) and the fic "Proof of Trust" by isindismay (though honestly the wholesomeness of some of their other fics are just as inspiring). Thanks a lot for the help. Credits of the title and beautiful last line of this fic go entirely to isindismay.

Disclaimer: I wish I owned just a fraction of the genius storytelling of Arcane. Wish it could rub off by just admiring. Unfortunately, I do not and it does not.

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Silco woke up with a muffled crash somewhere nearby. In his sleep-induced disorientation, he questioned for a moment whether or not the sound came from the real world or from his own troubled dreams, but an instinct answered that for him. That same instinct gauged the silence that followed and deemed it more worrisome than the loudness.

Silco nearly tripped on himself as he hurried up from his chair to Jinx's bedroom, but as he arrived and found the girl safely up, standing in the middle of the room unscathed, his body quickly relaxed and with that came the delayed effects of waking up so suddenly, all the heaviness of sleep and stiff muscles, and last but certainly not least the slight embarrassment from such a startle over something so simple as a noise in the night.

"Jinx," a yawn clawed its way out uninvited while Silco rubbed his face, trying to push the sleep away despite the stings he felt in his eyes. "Is everything alright?"

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

He almost lied and said she hadn't. "Why are you not sleeping? It's late."

"Yeah, I'll go in a minute, you can go back to bed too."

She wasn't looking at him, and her loose hair that had started to grow rather long covered her face from prying eyes. He couldn't really tell yet from her tone, but he knew there was something.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Leave me alone."

If there was any doubt left, that was enough to clear it. Silco struggled against his heavy eyelid and stepped into the girl's bedroom, only to get a "I said leave me alone!" before he even had a chance to say anything. Now her tone was angry but strained from tears.

"What's wrong? Did you have a bad dream?" It was his first guess. It was all too frequent.

Jinx let out a strangled sound that was the current state of her scoff.

"No, I didn't have any fucking nightmare, why, are you sick and tired of them happening all the time? Typical stupid silly little me, huh?"

Silco sighed. What had he got himself into.

Breathing in and out, he moved slowly and sat down at the edge of Jinx's bed, much to her fury.

"Leave me alone, Silco! I don't want you here!" Her face was tearstreaked and her eyes puffy red, showing she had been crying long before he eventually woke up. It was a terrible sight of hurt and Silco frowned involuntarily.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"What happened?"

"Nothing!" she yelled. Her face contorted itself, and in a second she was giggling, new tears gleaming on the corners of her eyes but stubboringly refusing to fall. "Nothing! Nothing happened, I'm just broken like that. Leave me alone already! I'll be better in a moment."

"No, you won't," he said without thinking. Jinx flinched slightly, as if he had shouted the words rather than whispered them.

Silco rubbed his face again, unable to stop himself from making Jinx think he was sick of the situation when in reality he was just trying to wake up properly and adjust to it. His eyes fell to the floor where he found the remnants of what had woken him, one of Jinx's handmade gadgets now broken into scattered pieces. Jinx's organized chaos had always extended to the floor, but it was easy to tell there was something else that had been thrown against the wall and now laid thrashed and that was the old plush toy Jinx carried with her when he had taken her in.

"I'm just sad, okay?" she said, throwing the words like she had thrown her things before. "That's it. See? It's stupid and it won't happen again. You can go back to bed now."

"Is there anything I can do to help? Why are you sad?"

"Why does it matter? I already know I failed you anyway, you don't need to say it, so leave."

That confused him. "Why would I ever say that?"

"Why not? You said it this morning to those guys."

Silco took a moment to recall what she was refering to. Indeed, he had dealt with some men earlier that day, a simple albeit annoying instance of indiscipline that was promptly corrected. Jinx had been present, as she always was, and he hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps, in retrospect, she had seemed a bit more aloof?, but that was frequent and Silco paid it little mind. Perhaps he had been too focused in the matters of work to notice or think about it. He never intended to, but with the widespreading of Shimmer as an objective in his plan for Zaun against Piltover, plus everything that entailed, he was considerably more busy and might've neglected seeing any sign of this sadness. But now he was here, and she had his full attention.

"Jinx, that is completely different."

"What's so different about it?"

"You're my daughter."

It was that simple. He actually felt a pang of hurt when he realized he wished he didn't have to explain it. Wished that she knew why that was reason enough.

"I was also Vander's daughter," she said weakly instead, throwing herself and sinking down on the opposite side of the bed. Silco could only watch as she seemed about to lose the battle she was fighting against the tears. "I was also my parents' daughter, and look how well those times went. I killed Vander. I may just end up killing you too. How's that not failing?"

What was he supposed to say to that? He knew how to talk to people, persuade or threaten them, not how to comfort a crying child. What was he supposed to say? That he wouldn't mind if that happened, or that she could be rest assured it would never happen? Because he wouldn't, and because it could happen, but what good would saying that do? What good would a brutal truth or a lie do to her? All Silco wanted was to find a way to for her to feel better.

"Jinx. Come here."

The child snapped her head the other way instead and curled herself tightly around her knees, purposefully doing the opposite of his request. Silco called her a second time, his voice levelled even if hinting a bit more of his tiredness than he would've wished; he wasn't sure if she could hear it, but the response he got this time was different. Rather than crawl closer in a begrudged or grumpy way, Jinx threw herself onto him, faster than his reflexes could follow, and nestled herself on his lap, arms clasped around Silco's neck.

"Please don't leave me too. I'm so tired."

Taken aback by the movement, not unlike the scene of when they had first met, Silco took a moment to process the words properly as his arms wrapped around Jinx's small frame, small and yet so much taller than she had been not so long ago.

...What had he gotten himself into.

"I won't. I'm here, Jinx. I'm right here."

She returned the gentle squeeze his arms pressed against her back with a whimper, and the little nudge was all it took for the dam to break and she started sobbing heavily against him. Silco let her cry, even if it hurt him. She needed to get it out.

It was hard to tell how long it took her to for her to recover her breath after a coughing fit took hold of her. Snot and saliva and tears covered her beautiful face so terribly, but Silco didn't turn away from her, didn't hide from her pain.

Eventually, as he rubbed her back softly, she pleaded: "Don't... don't be mad."

"I won't."

Jinx nuzzled against his chest, spreading tears over his vest. "I just... I just got really sad thinking back. On my sister."

Silco's breathing paused on his throat. Oh. Suddenly it made sense.

"I want to hate her," Jinx said in a whimper. "I do, I want to, and I do hate her, but I realized I just... I just feel sad." A new sob threatened to send her spirilling down again, but she just coughed, her throat burning. "I want... I wanted things to go back, without what happened. I know I shouldn't, I know I shouldn't want that, but... I-I... I just want it to stop hurting. I want my sister back."

"Oh, child." Silco pulled her closer again, hoping it would help pull her back together this time. Jinx was impressively strong, still able to hug him tightly despite everything she had just went through. "I know. I know. But your sister is gone, Jinx. And she's not coming back. I'm sorry."

And while the words made Jinx sob, Silco noted the surprise he himself felt over them. Because he was sorry. He would've wished her to not ever feel that pain if he could help it.

Which was against everything he always believed regarding his own struggle. Pain strengthed them. Pain was necessary for them.

He shouldn't be sorry.

...even if it hurt seeing her like that.

"Things cannot go back, and although I know it hurts now, you'll see that it is for the better," he told her; told them both. "You'll see, Jinx."

"...I just wished she could come back."

If he were to wish anything regarding Jinx's sister, it would be for the girl to still be alive just so Jinx could kill her herself. To overcome, truly overcome the debilitating pain of betrayal by erasing of the source of it with her own hands. That was a necessary step people who had been hurt like them should take in their path to their new lives; at least that he knew from experience. But the stupid girl was dead. She had denied Jinx that release.

"I wish things could be as they were, I didn't mean to kill them, I didn't, I didn't want M-Mylo or Claggor to die, or Vander, I didn't want Vi to leave and die..."

"You said you killed Vander," he said, feeling his child cower in his arms. If it clearly hurt her so much, at least this pain wasn't hers and he could help with. "I did. I stabbed him, twice. Have I told you that?"

Jinx sniffed, rubbing the snot off her nose with the back of her hand as she straightened up enough to look at him.

"You did?"

"Yes."

Jinx lowered her gaze. She seemed so tired. Silco suddenly realized he didn't know just how late in the night it was, and for how long she had been up.

"He betrayed me." Silco held Jinx's hands on his own, stroking them slowly. "Many years ago, he tried to kill me because I didn't do what he wanted me to. I never expected it to happen, Jinx. Never. And even as it was happening, I couldn't believe it. All I could think of was, 'No. No, no, this can't be happening, it can't be.' He was my brother. But that didn't matter to him. I didn't matter. Drowning is... drowning is something unique. Even as I struggled to believe he was really trying to kill me, I fought back. I knew I was going to die, but I still didn't give up. I stabbed him then, too, and I stabbed him again after that explosion happened."

Silco paused, looking into Jinx's eyes even though her gaze was still away from his. Her eyebrows quivered out of her control, her lip trembled.

"I never experienced pain like that before, Jinx. I wanted to die because it hurt so much. I didn't know how I was supposed to continue to live with that amount of pain, when someone I would have done everything to save instead tried to kill me. I thought, could there be a way to go back? Was there any way things could go back to how they were? But it's just like I told you. They cannot. Never. And that's alright, Jinx. Because now it won't happen again. You're not the same person anymore. Even though it hurts, you learn from it. You won't be put in the same position ever again. You won't be the one getting hurt again."

He nudged her face up softly, and Jinx looked at him, her eyelids heavy.

"You can live through this. Like I have. We are alive. They're not. We have grown strong with the pain and took that power away from them."

One single, silent tear fell from her eye. "Did it help you stop hurting?"

Silco stroked Jinx's face and pulled her close, kissing her forehead.

"It did, child."

They couldn't ignore this pain, it was too overwhelming, and even if embracing it hurt too much, that was something Silco knew and could teach Jinx. To embrace it and rise back from it, above it, better and stronger.

"I think I want to sleep now," she said weakly. Silco kissed her again and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as she rubbed her tired eyes.

Silco went out to fetch a glass of water while Jinx changed into her pyjamas, wiped her nose and washed the tears off her face. She was already sitting under the covers when he got back, nearly capsizing the glass of water when Silco handed it to her. He saw how she looked towards the plushie rabbit on the floor, and after a moment, sank into her pillow and turned her back to it.

"Can you stay here? Please." He knew she was going to ask that, and after he tucked her in, he laid down on his side next to her. Jinx moved so he could have a bit of her pillow, even though Silco laid over his bent arm for the most part. She quickly rolled around and curled into a tight ball against him, snuggling for comfort.

"I'm designing a better hand bomb," she told him quietly. "I broke the prototype, but it's really easy to make a new one. I think I can do it tomorrow."

"That's wonderful."

"Goodnight, Silco."

"Goodnight, Jinx."

"Love you."

She whispered it so low Silco wondered if it had been real or if he imagined it. Both options stunned him.

"...I love you too."

Despite her exhaustion, or because of it, Jinx fell asleep in less than two minutes. Her breathing estabelized at last, even if she still had to breathe a bit through her mouth due to the slightly clogged nose, and Silco felt himself breathe easier too. He didn't know exactly how he had become a father to this child, but it clearly didn't seem to matter. He fell asleep too, and they both got a much deserved rest, father and daughter, two broken people who, despite everything, were slightly less broken because they were together.

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the end

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Author's Note: This was hard to write.

Thanks for reading.