Angela doesn't remember much about her life with her parents. It's perfectly natural, she knows even in her teens, to not be able to recall those early childhood years. The fact most of the few memories she still has revolve around her soulmark are only more precious for it.
The day she got her Words stands out in her mind as particularly clear, more so than most memories she's made as recently as a day prior. She must've been five or six, the date never mattered, only what it brought into her life.
Clear as the day it happened on, Angela recalls running around a playground with some other kids, then suddenly, pain – alike burning.
The way home is a blur. It wasn't bad, but she was a child, and not a careless one at that, not used to hurting. Oh she knew it was going to, other kids told her so, but the girl always assumed their bragging to be just that, since her parents said it wasn't going to hurt too much. Liars. For what it's worth, it was for the best. After all, it wouldn't do to have their daughter fear her markday.
More strongly than all of that, however, she remembers what Mom and Dad told her when she got home. Their reassurance and warmth, the stories of their own soulmarks and how they met and fell in love. How the same would now happen to her and how wonderful it would be. The pain did not go away, not for hours more, but it helped to distract her from it, at least.
The marks became something of an obsession for young Angela. All of them. And her parents were only too happy to encourage the scholarly streak she developed while attempting to learn everything about soulmarks there was for a child to know, often helping her go over a book or an article she could not understand on her own. It was also the time little Angela began her English lessons. If the first words her soulmate would say to her were to be in that language, then Angela would make sure she could carry on with the conversation.
Then, one day, it was her Grandma who picked Angela up from the kindergarten. She never saw her parents again. There wasn't even a funeral, not that she knew what was happening at the time – the town had to be abandoned and that was that. Years later, she learned that all that could be done for the Omnics' victims once her old home was reclaimed, was to make a mass grave and a monument, as there was no way to recognize the bodies after so long without DNA tests, and those cost money neither the government nor the people could spare.
All that little Angela had left of her parents was Grandma's photo album, that and the steadily degrading memories of them, with those around her mark being the clearest of all.
It made it... less impossible to deal with their absence. She could almost pretend they were there when she woke up crying if she closed her eyes and rubbed at her Words – almost hear their voices, almost feel their embrace. Almost.
With time, the hurt in her heart was replaced by an ache. Time heals all wounds, or at least lets them scar over.
Her mark remained a source of comfort to Angela as she grew up, even if her fascination with soulmates gave way to more practical pursuits of her medical studies. She had time. Most of the other students, most of them much older than herself, still hadn't heard their Words. Truthfully, it'd be problematic had she found her soul's second half back then – the amount of work she had assigned, along with the early stages of her own research left her with only enough time to sleep. Of course, leading such a lifestyle didn't exactly leave her with many opportunities to even meet her soulmate – there were times when she did not as much as see a new face for months on end.
She probably made more acquaintances the day she first came to Overwatch Swiss HQ than during all her years at the campus. It would be a day to remember even without hearing her Words.
(-)
"And this, doctor Ziegler, will be your office." Commander Morrison states as he opens the door for the young woman to pass through.
She does so without a word. This is their last stop, and all has been said between them that they needed to say for today. The man even provided her with his personal phone number as a key asset should she need anything. It's a bit overwhelming, having one of the most powerful men in the world just a call away, so is being called key. Her. A seventeen year old surgery and scientist. She knows her own worth, and that of her research which Overwatch agreed to fund, but still. It's a lot to process.
At least her office seems entirely down-to-earth. A bit bigger than what she got used to in Zurich, but she supposes a UN complex, as opposed to a hospital, can afford to waste some space. That is not to say the room is big at all, but with the memory of her campus dormitories still fresh in her mind, this is more than satisfactory.
"It'll do nicely," She turns back to the man, only a step into the room himself. "Thank you, Commander."
"Of course. Now, the paperwork regarding your nanotech research and funding should all be here." He motions to the laptop lying on the desk. "There's a reason I'm showing this to you a week before you can do anything with it." Oh. "I want it all ready on Day One. Understood?"
"Yes, Commander Morrison." Bureaucracy is something she's well acquainted with. Dealing with it was what, in the end, pushed her to accept the organization's proposal. A week worth of paperwork to have her research funded and ready to begin experiments? It's too good a proposition to pass-up when the alternative would either be accepting an offer from someone less trustworthy than Overwatch, or wait years before the old farts in the committee approved her work. Years during which it could already be saving lives in its development stage.
It gives her a sort of vindictive pleasure that they will have no claim to her work when it finally goes into mass-use all across the world, as that is where Overwatch operates and where she wants her tech to be used.
Despite a few drawbacks, like her sponsor being a military organization, it's a very good deal she got – it'll kickstart her work in a way she couldn't otherwise hope for. Now, she just has to deliver on her promises of efficiently using the millions that are to be poured into her tech. Easy. She got where she is with just her grant.
"Now, unless you have any questions, I'll leave you to your-" he cuts off when something- someone barrels through the still-open door, said someone being a dark-skinned girl somewhere on the cusp on her teens, with a wide-brimmed hat in her hands.
Angela shoots her new boss a questioning look. Her own age is the lowest they go, and the area they're in is not exactly public access, as to some kid from a school trip wandering off away from the group.
"Jack!" the girl hisses, making Angela do do a double take. "Jack, hide me, quick! You don't want Jesse to get his hat back, do you?"
"I'd be glad to see the da- thing gone." He snorts, amusement and sudden understanding apparent in his voice. "Unfortunately for us, this isn't my office. You'll have to ask Miss Ziegler, here."
Angela shoots her soon-to-be superior a questioning look, to which he responds with a nod. Alright then, if he wants her to play along, she will-
"Hello. Can I hide here, please?" The young woman's heart stutters and her stomach jumps into her throat, before a ball of lead weighs it back down at hearing her Words being spoken by a girl no older than twelve.
Her breath hitches, and it takes all of her self-control to act like the adult she is and not flee the room.
God, her soulmate is still a child. It's- she's always known she's the older one – she got her mark after birth, after all, but she never imagined she'd meet them before it became irrelevant.
"Doctor Ziegler?"
Yet here she is, perhaps young enough to still attend primary, and staring at Angela with those big brown eyes, expecting an answer that will bind their fates together for the rest of their lives. It's too early, she can't- she's not-
"Doctor Ziegler."
She quickly – intently - studies the girl's face, before taking in her whole body, and the relief is almost overwhelming when she doesn't find anything there shouldn't be in the girl's childish features. Angela braces herself against the desk, as her knees suddenly threaten to give out from beneath her. It- it's okay. It's not at all uncommon for an age gap to exist between soulmates, it's just a rare case indeed for them to meet while it still matters. She never even considered the possibility.
"Ziegler." Her eyes snap upwards, to the commander's concerned own. "You okay?"
The scientist nods, not daring to say a word not addressed to the child in the room, who she notes, now that she can think again, seems to have withdrawn into herself, as if ashamed or embarrassed, maybe both.
That, more than anything else, is finally enough for Angela's tongue to untie, and address the girl.
"If you still want to, then of course."
The change in the girl's face is instantaneous, somehow managing to cycle from shame through surprise, then wonder, elation, and finally mortification, all in the space of a second.
She bolts out of the door in the next.
"Fareeha!" Morrison calls after her, his expression, for a change, still stuck on shock. "Shit. You, wait here." He orders Angela (and there's no doubt in her mind that it is an order), before taking off after the girl, leaving the doctor alone in her brand new office.
For a moment, the blonde simply stands still, mind empty, before it becomes apparent to her that she should probably sit down. This... went exactly nothing like she imagined it would. Angela's dreams weren't anything much, either, as realistically, hello, can I hide here, please are not the words of a knight in shining armour. However, that did not stop her from having fantasies.
None of those (thank God) included her soulmate being a child.
She ungracefully collapses into the chair, and hides her face in her hands.
What is she supposed to do? If – or rather when the girl... when Fareeha calms down, she'll probably want to meet her, fuck, she wants to properly meet her too but- how are they supposed to interact? She's five or six years older and at this stage of life it's like heaven and hell. Moreover, Angela is a busy person, she simply doesn't have time (especially right now) to deal with anything but her work, the commander himself said he wants it done by the next week. That's a week of what Fareeha might take as ignoring or pushing her away. On the other hand, if they do spend time together, they'd be running a risk of the girl developing to cater to Angela's lifestyle and- and avoiding that entail heavily involving the parents to make sure...
...Parents.
It's easy, all too easy for Angela to imagine the girl's parents reactions when they learn their daughter has found her soulmate. A soulmate five years older than their daughter.
Lord have mercy on her soul.