AN: Inspired by Ramida-R's fanart of Jesse snuggling with a dog, because that's how I roll.

Lying in a cot in the infirmary, McCree dully rotated his new stub, taking in the bandaged, perfectly rounded end. In retrospect, losing the arm wasn't the biggest blow to his ego – plenty of the guys in Deadlock were missing fingers or toes and that didn't slow them down none. But with his arm he'd lost his dominant hand, his firing hand. What use was he now?

If he closed his eyes, he could still feel his old limb responding to his brain's signals, flexing and tensing, shifting in the scratchy white blankets.

It'd been three days since the good doctor had weaned him off the anesthesia, allowing the unfocused haze to clear from his mind, though a different fog quickly swept in to replace it. Lethargy. Inertia. Apathy.

It felt like he could spent the rest of his life in that bed and never want or care for anything again. Then a wriggling mass of fur was unceremoniously dropped on his bruised ribs, forcing him to sit up with a wheeze as what remained of his left arm jerked to capture the creature scrambling to its feet on his chest, before his brain caught up with him and he shifted to place a palm over its grayish-brown coat with his right hand.

Staring up at him through his fingers was the slender black muzzle of a Belgian Malinois, the kind of dog that rescue teams used to track down survivors after bombings and chase down rogue omnics. This one, though, had apparently forgotten to drink its milk, because if its entire wiggling body could be caged beneath Jesse's palm, then it was a good deal too small for its breed, even for a runt. Most striking, however, were the crystalline blue eyes staring mournfully up at him.

Jesse frowned at the puppy, trying to discern where it –

He picked the little critter up by the scruff of its neck, then set it back down.

– where she could have come from.

He should have just looked up, though, because standing at the foot of his bed, with his arms folded across his chest and the most self-satisfied grin that Jesse had ever seen on the man - was Commander Reyes. "I see you're already taking a liking to your new partner, Agent McCree."

Jesse rolled his eyes, though the jibe didn't keep him from mechanically stroking the tuft of white fur on the pup's chest, for which her tail wagged appreciatively. "Real nice of you to drop her on me like that, Commander." The dog, noticing Jesse was dividing his attention, rolled over onto her back, her tongue lolling out to the side as she searched for praise. And though it agitated his battered ribs, Jesse huffed a quiet laugh at the pup's sheer bliss when he scratched her behind the ears, though he was careful not to put too much pressure on her left side, as the tip appeared to have been bitten off, possibly by one of her siblings. "Does this clever little girl have a name?"

Reyes arced a brow at the pair. "Forgiven me already, have you?" Jesse chose not to dignify the question with a response, opting to devote his attentions to the dog instead, but Reyes didn't seem to mind. "I figured you might." And to the dog, he said with a heavy pat on her head that caused her brow to furrow and her ears to droop,"I should have you do all my negotiations for me, girl."

Clearing his throat, Reyes continued, "Anyway, her name's Mimsy, after Zerelda 'Zee' Mimms." Jesse's eyes brightened. "Yeah, I thought you might like that." Looking down at the young canine nipping Jesse's fingers as he poked her chest, Reyes carefully informed him that, "From now on, it'll be your job to train her." He wasn't sure what reaction to expect from the cowboy, but blank incomprehension hadn't been it. Hadn't Angela told him that the drugs had been cleaned from the kid's system?

Reyes scratched the back of his neck, feeling strangely awkward. "Mercy said you'll be out of here in a few days. Until then, she'll help you with the feeding and walking her, but after that, I expect you to take full responsibility." Unless it conflicted with physical therapy or training, but for those eventualities, he'd asked Angela to help out if she got the chance. And if not her, well, he was sure Fareeha wouldn't mind pitching in. "Her Overwatch evaluation is four months from now, so I would heal quickly if I were you." To others, that might have come across as insensitive, but McCree often responded better to a kick in the pants than coddling. And something told him that, consciously or not, Jesse was extending his stay in the hospital. "Do you understand what I'm telling you, Agent?"

And for the first time since he'd entered, whether it was the sharp tone or the kid finally pulling himself out of his own head, Jesse looked up at him, clearly touched. "Boss… you got me a dog?"

Angela Ziegler was a demon.

She was a ruthless, unforgiving slavedriver, and Jesse didn't care who heard him say it, because it was the God's truth.

He was still trembling after physical therapy with her, his brow wet and shiny with sweat as he trained muscles he'd rarely used before to compensate for those he was now missing, when Angela called for a break – and did Jesse mention she was an angel? – allowing him to slump on the gym's bench, exhausted beyond all rational thought.

This was it. This was how he would die.

Then he caught Angela's sneaky smile when she moved to open up the glass doors, and a gray blur whizzed in, leaping on the bench and diving into his lap. Laughing at the ridiculous puppy wagging its tail from where she was lodged between his thighs, Jesse picked her up with one hand and braced her against his chest. She hooked her claws into the fabric of his shirt to lunge up and lick his face.

"Well, fancy meetin' you here, darlin'." He sputtered when Mimsy got his mouth. Eyeing a very pleased looking Angela Ziegler standing by the open door, Jesse called out over the puppy's head, "You wouldn't have had anything to do with this, right? Taking advantage of this sweet little girl to wring that last bit of strength out of me before I collapse?" Instead of answering, Angela placed a curved finger under her nose and mimicked a scowl.

Jesse grinned.

"Do you think we should ask supplies if they could send us a bullet proof vest for dogs?" McCree was sitting on top of Angela's desk, having pushed aside her documents and folders to make room, while she distractedly flipped through the pages of a book she'd found in the library on puppy training.

Turning over the puppy in his palm to a chorus of delighted yipping, Jesse pondered, "Do they make bullet proof vests for dogs Mimsy's size?"

"Good question. Better question: Do they make bullet proof vests for dogs?"

Slipping off of the desk, Jesse peered over her shoulder with a mischievous twinkle in his brown eyes. "I betcha Commander Reyes does." Then he lifted the puppy's wet nose up to his and did a slow spin. "How about it, Mimms? You wanna be a Blackwatch agent like me?" She barked. "Yay!"

After staring fondly up at the pair for a moment, Angela directed Jesse's attention to a paragraph in the textbook about something called bite inhibition. "Apparently, she's old enough to start biting, which means we need to teach her how to control them." Jesse nodded, waiting for her to explain. "We need to let her bite us, then act like we're in terrible, agonizing pain whenever she bites too hard."

"Don't we want her to bite, though?"

"It's not that we're teaching her not to do it, rather we're teaching her how to understand and control her own strength." Jesse went quiet, thinking of the metal prosthetic Torbjorn was crafting for him in the forges, of how he likely wouldn't be touching Mimsy with his metal arm for… Well, he wasn't sure if he'd ever get around to lifting the pup up in his palm with it the way he could with his flesh arm.

A knock on the door caused him to swivel around to see who could be visiting Angela in the infirmary. Usually, it was Gabe or Ana, the latter of which often came down for tea, but this Amari was too small to be her. Realizing she had their attention, she tilted her head with a cocky smirk, then mimed tossing her hair over one shoulder with a flourish. "I heard you lot were looking for an actress?"

"Fareeha?!" Angela jumped to her feet, glancing uncomfortably between the child and the ex-gangster in her office. Sighing, Jesse placed Mimsy on the desk, shaking his head apologetically when she whined to be picked up again, then shifted to angle himself in such a way that he could slip past Fareeha once she was inside. "What are you doing here? Ana didn't tell me you were coming."

"I wanted it to be a surprise!" The instant Angela opened the door, Fareeha darted inside to throw herself around his waist, effectively trapping him. "Where do you think you're going, Jesse? Aren't you going to show me your dog?"

With a rueful chuckle, Jesse jabbed a thumb at the creature spinning in panicked circles on the desk. Fareeha gasped, sweeping Mimsy up into her arms. "I love her!" Mimsy seemed to appreciate the sentiment, because her ears perked and her tail wagged as she stretched to lick Fareeha's cheeks.

While she was distracted, Jesse edged for the exit, but when Angela caught his eye, she very subtly shook her head. And that was fine, too.

A horrifying screech, high-pitched and terrible, caused them both to whip around, fear gripping their hearts at the sight of Fareeha collapsed on the tile with Mimsy licking her in concern.

Angela kneeled at her side, asking her what happened, while Jesse collected the dog to give her space to work. They'd only looked away for a second!

"It's okay, Mimsy," Fareeha whispered feebly, "I know… you didn't mean… to kill me."

There was a beat where Angela stopped moving, her lips parted in surprise, Mimsy's cries died off into confused silence, and Jesse…

Jesse lost it. "You're supposed to teach the dog not to bite," he snapped, because Angela had apparently blue-screened on them and needed some time to reboot. "Not traumatize it to kingdom come!"

Overjoyed by this turn of events, Mimsy squirmed out of his arms to jump on the future menace to society, who scrambled into an upright position to catch her, and cover Fareeha in relieved kisses.

Fareeha peered up at Jesse, looking sheepish. "You're not actually mad, are you?"

Sighing in defeat, Jesse reached down to give her braids a fond tossle. "Not for long, little sister. Just try to not play dead again anytime soon, okay? I don't think Dr. Ziegler's heart could take it."

Angela blinked. "Oh, I am so telling her mother about this."

Overall, dog-sitting came rather easily to Jesse.

He gave her a treat when she did her business outside, scolded her gently whenever she left presents in his room or for the other Blackwatch agents in the hallways ( that was always fun ), and praised her when did little things right – like letting him know when she needed to be walked or waited patiently for him to finish physical therapy before nipping at his ankles and begging to be played with.

Between the two of them (and occasionally Fareeha), they'd managed to teach Mimsy how to sit on command, how to stay, and how to roll over.

Getting her to stay out of Jesse's bed at night, however, was a work in progress.

"As your senior agent," Jesse told her sternly before lights out. She already lying down on his mattress, and still no bigger than his pillow, "and direct superior here at this fine establishment, I have to insist that I sleep on the cot and you sleep on the floor." The dog stared up at him with doleful blue eyes, whining softly. Jesse felt his resolve start to crumble immediately, but tried to put up a brave front. "Sorry, darling, I don't make the rules, I just enforce them."

She rolled over with a huff, exposing her pale gray stomach as her tongue lolled out. Jesse carefully considered this argument, searching for a rebuttal, but found none forthcoming. Throwing his hands up, he cried, "Fine! You've won this time, Mimsy! But next time I'm bringing my lawyer." He crawled into bed, pushing Mimsy to the other side where she quickly flopped over to curl against his left side, fitting into the space where his arm used to be. She rested her head on his scarred stub with a tired sigh. When Jesse closed his eyes, he could feel her weight on the limb, and the wet nose that sometimes pressed against his skin.

In his dreams, he smelled smoke.

Men shouted unintelligible orders from all sides, mixed in with the cries of the wounded and the dying. What were their orders now? What was the mission?

Was there still an objective or was the only objective to stay alive?

Fire bloomed from the earth, shaking the ground, shifting the rubble. Several of the voices stopped crying out, and Jesse sprinted for cover, hoping by some miracle that he could regroup with the remains of his squad before a turret caught him in the gut.

There was a Bastion unit guarding the rubble towards the south exit, the windows had all been destroyed and collapsed in the concussion blasts. Hidden behind the remains of a pillar, Jesse gripped his revolver until his knuckles turned white, holding the cold steel close to his heart as sweat dripped down his grime-encased cheeks. There was only one Omnic standing between him and freedom.

It seemed to sense that there was life in the ruins, though, as it stepped in his general direction, but its area scanning told him that it didn't know where he was yet.

Unless that was only what it wanted him to think…

This was all starting to make his head hurt.

Eventually, he decided to wait until the Bastion was facing in the opposite direction, and try to get a head shot. He was the best in Deadlock, and one of the best in Blackwatch, with the possible exception of Reyes and the definite exception of Ana Amari, so if he couldn't rely on his marksmanship to get him out of this, then what could he rely on?

He waited, evening his breaths, setting up his shot, then in the split second the Bastion swiveled its head to scan the opposite wall, he squeezed the trigger-

-and the ground shifted beneath his feet.

The Bastion's scarlet eye found him before he could find his balance, before he could set up another shot, and he felt…

Jesse awakened with a gasp that segued into a coughing fit when he accidentally sucked down a mouthful of dog. Mimsy whined anxiously as he struggled to breath, not realizing that her sitting on his mouth and nose was the problem. Tiredly, Jesse plucked her off of him, muttering, "I don't know who hired you, but I'll double your pay."

She licked his fingers.

The next morning, he fed her scraps from the cafeteria table, ignoring the stink-eye Reyes continuously gave him from the higher officer's seating because Mimsy deserved a little spoiling every now and then. She'd earned it.

"How's that training going, McCree?" It was the sneering, snotty tone that gave Martinez away. He was a stout man in his twenties, a few years older than McCree, but considerably better liked, because unlike him, Martinez didn't get in due to the boss' "misguided sense of mercy."

McCree spared him a laconic glance, before calling out, "Just peachy, Martinez!" Sticking his tongue out for good measure would have been beyond satisfying, but unfortunately he had to settle for doing it mentally, since Reyes was still watching. Better to let Martinez dig his own hole. From below the table, Mimsy cried quietly, likely for more food. After passing her a piece of broccoli, which went untouched for some reason, Jesse assured her, "Don't you worry none about him, sweetie. You're smarter than the lot of them and twice as pretty."

This was proven especially true in the next phase of her training.

Over the weeks, Reyes had fitted him for a Body Bite suit, a heavily padded armor that was meant to help them safely teach Mimsy how to go after running and aggressive assailants.

"I look ridiculous," Jesse complained, flopping his one arm up and down while the other twitched pathetically.

"Which we all know you're already accustomed to," Reyes told him from the sidelines, where he knelt with Mimsy on a leash. "Just start running when I let her go."

"Sure thing, hoss." Reyes unclipped the leash, allowing Mimsy to take off like a bottle rocket. Still feeling silly, Jesse sort of jogged away, only picking up the pace when Reyes scolded him. Eventually, he felt a slight tug at his heel, and looked down to see Mimsy... doing her best. He glanced questioningly at Reyes, who shrugged, then mirrored the gesture before collapsing like a sack of potatoes. "Help!" He called out in mock-distress. "I have fallen and I can't get up!"

Then it turned out he actually couldn't and had to wait for Reyes to help him stand while Mimsy gave him loving kisses.

The next step was Focus.

Mimsy had to be trained to continue concentrating on the objective even if a piece of them came off. Distractions could be deadly and she couldn't afford any.

So a bulky coat was put on over Jesse's body suit, making him feel like he was going to die of heatstroke before he took two steps. And he was supposed to run in this thing?

Ah, well. Everyone had to die, someday.

He set off when Mimsy was released at what felt like a panicked waddle, and was apprehended in no time. Since he expected the dog to go for the coat, he made to shuck it off, but Mimsy surpised him by coming up on his left side, then sinking her teeth into the empty sleeve.

He blinked at the quietly growling puppy hanging from his suit with confusion, before giving it an experimental shake. She held on.

Next, he tried slipping out of the coat, and managed to get it off one arm, but Mimsy kept getting in the way. "Shake her off, vaquero!"

"Reyes, I can't! She's biting through the coat," it was hard to talk through all the helpless laughter spilling out of him, "to the suit underneath it." He flopped his sleeve and the dog attached to it for emphasis, before abruptly doubling over with a wheeze, which caused him to overbalance when Mimsy unclenched her jaw, and he tipped onto his side.

At the end of the day, both Reyes and Jesse were hardpressed to say that her training was an unmitigated success, but she got her treats and pets, anyway.

About four months later, Mimsy's training had progressed in leaps and bounds. They'd used the obstacle course to help build her up physically, and trained her to scent out Omnics, which Jesse proved with an impromptu demonstration.

He called Reyes over to the combat training field, where he'd buried and hidden automaton parts, then set Mimsy loose, rewarding her with praise and pats whenever she sniffed out a metal limb or carapace. In the end, she found all of them within the acceptable time limit for canine field operatives and trackers. While Jesse greeted her ecstatically when she was done, "Good girl! Who's my girl? Who's my girl?" Reyes was finding it difficult to maintain a professional distance.

Gruffly, he said, "I'll let Morrison know she's ready," and turned to leave.

"Morrison?" Jesse caught up with him, his dog trotting happily at his heels. "Why does Morrison need to know?

"She'll be working with the Overwatch K9 unit." It came out flat, inflectionless. Reyes picked up his stride.

But Jesse couldn't take a hint. "Doing what, Reyes?" Or maybe he could. Maybe he was just waiting for Reyes to tell him that it wasn't true.

"Finding omnics, hidden turrets," Reyes told him distractedly. "That sort of thing. Then he stopped, causing Jesse and Mimsy to stumble slightly when they tried to stop, as well. Frustration now evident, Reyes demanded with an almost imperceptible pleading note, "I mean, what did you expect, Jesse?"

Jesse slowly shook his head. In disbelief. In denial. "Gabe, she trusts me. You can't just… She won't trust just anybody."

"It was never your dog, Jesse," Reyes told him quietly, seeing the progress Jesse had made over the previous months vanishing in front of him. "I told you from the beginning that this would happen." Not that he'd ever wanted it to. Not that he hadn't done everything in his power to prevent it. But his power only stretched so far, and he'd made a promise he couldn't go back on.

Which left him with a nagging question - Was giving Jesse a dog, and all the good it had done, worth taking it away from him now?

"Yeah, you're right," Jesse was saying with a sheepish expression when Reyes realized he was speaking. He scratched the back of his neck, not quite looking him in the eyes. "Sorry, I must have lost my head for a second."

That was the mask Jesse wore for enemies, for bad news, for loss. He'd worn it when he'd lost his arm. And he was wearing it now.

Unable to let that stand, Reyes grabbed him by the shoulder, "Listen, Jesse, we'll always be responsible for the operatives we train. From now on, you'll just have to believe that she'll remember the lessons you taught her and trust that you'll see her again at the end of all this. Trusting and believing in your student is one of your most important duties as her trainer."

Sensing that the atmosphere had changed, Mimsy nudged McCree, her startling blue eyes shifting between them in confusion, since she saw both of them as family, but Jesse was upset and Reyes seemed to be the cause.

Kneeling down, Jesse pulled Mimsy into the best embrace he could manage, before burying his face into her fur.

Reyes forced himself not to look away. "Listen," he continued, even though he was sure that Jesse would have preferred it if he stopped, "if anything happens to her, she'll be sent to a good family." And Jesse looked up at him with a wet, guarded gaze. It was expected, but, "Jesse, have I ever lied to you?"

But Gabriel Reyes, Commander of Blackwatch, always kept his promises.

The lifespan for field dogs was a short one – five years, at best, usually – but Mimsy had never been one to meet expectations. She lost a leg to the Omnic Crisis shortly before its end, after which she was sent to a good family in New Mexico on the Commander's orders. In his wanderings, McCree visited her, sometimes. Just to make sure she was okay.

He never stayed long.