"He was deeply surprised when the two of us scandalously used his own lab to prove our theory." Was it a little bit of a fuck you? Not then, no. They both respected him a great deal and knew he was trying to do the right thing, or at least at the time that was the feeling. But it was the only access they had to a lab and he had confiscated all of Jayce's work. This was their only chance. It was one of the best nights of his life.

"We did find one another. Twice now."

He remembers well last year when he was frantically going through Cadens, trying to find a way back to Piltover, because Viktor was dying and everything was going wrong. Only to find him alive right there. He never thought he'd seen Jayce again, after two months in an isolated other world. He never thought he'd live long enough.

Now it's all coming to a head. Jayce is quiet after Kell's words; he knows they are well-meant and he also believes them, most of the time. He thinks they are going to make it work, somehow. Jayce usually has to believe it too. He tries to make things just happen, if he believes hard enough. "I was supposed to fix him. It wasn't supposed to be so risky." Supposed to, because as usual, Jayce came up with a thought in his head.

"They don't teach higher level healing in Free Cities, I got as far as I could, but it wasn't enough." A part of him knows that Viktor wanted to be able to cure himself, but if Jayce did it for him, that still would have been good enough. No danger of the Hexcore or anything else, just Jayce using magic and saving the love of his life.

If he dies, it'll be because I failed.