Overwatch had fallen.
Lena couldn't believe it at first
Lena didn't want to believe it.
But no matter what she wanted this much was true.
Overwatch was now illegal. One by one, Lena had to watch helplessly as her friends, her family, packed there things and left. Some with tight hugs and tearful goodbyes, others overnight without so much as a note.
Lena was the last to leave. Putting it off till the very last minute.
Winston got to stay, and Athena. It wasn't fair, she argued, why did they get to stay when Lena was getting reminders via email from the UN every other day to go to the nearest government facility where she'd be registered and tagged like some zoo animal?
(Because Winston technically owned this base no one wanted to tick off the giant primate by telling him to move.)
Lena was scared to leave. She didn't have anywhere else to go. She'd lived on-base ever since she'd joined overwatch, had always been right across from Winston, to chase away the lingering what-ifs that came with her chronal disassociation. Right across from her best friend who would be right at her side within minutes should Athena in all her vital-monitoring glory detect anything wrong.
Now, Lena would be alone. She'd tried to be chipper at first, mostly for the others sakes, but eventually, the shock wore off, right around the time she entered her small, quiet new apartment for the first time, and she cried.
The first month wasn't as much of a problem she would have thought. Wake up, go to work at a dingy little mechanic shop, fix cars a thousand times less interesting work on than Overwatch's fighter jets and massive cargo planes with glazed eyes, go home, eat microwave meals and take out alone, and go to sleep.
The second month Lena started hitting the bottle. Hard. Where the first month had been a blur of monotony, of painfull normality, the following months were nothing more than a haze of headaches, blackouts, throwing up and somehow still managing to fix the boring, simple cars everyday.
The more often Lena drank, the more resistant she became to the stuff, so Lena bought stronger stuff, and drank more of it. Anything to numb the pain.
But numbness turned to sadness which turned to depression. Hours were spent simply curled up in her bed sobbing because goddamn did she miss it. Waking up to a rowdy kitchen with Angela fussing over how much coffee Jesse drank and Hana trying to sneak peanut butter from Winston instead of having to drag herself out of bed every morning to a cold, silent kitchen.
Ironically, silence was Lena's best friend now.
By the beginning of the second year the silence had started to cling to lena like a second skin. She rarely spoke anymore, didn't try to seak anyone out to chase away the loneliness. No one tried to seak her out either. The blue beacon on her chest tend to push people away. No one wanted anything to do with an ex-Overwatch agent.
Ex-Overwatch. There it was again. Every time the thought hit her so did a wave of sadness, suffocating her, drowning her in bitterness because it wasn't fair! Everything had been so amazing! The thrill of the fight, the pride at knowing she was doing so much good, the security of family.
It was all gone now. Ripped out from under her feet by the PETRAS Act. Sometimes Lena wondered if taking off her harness and letting herself get lost in the slipstream would hurt less.
The rain didn't help. Lena had traveled so much and so often that she'd forgotten how much it rained in London, had forgotten all about the clinging mist and ever present shroud of grey the city was cloaked in. Because of this it was always cold and Lena found herself longing for the warmth of Nadya: the egyptian base, more than once.
By now, the tan from the many hours in the sun missions had given her was long gone, leaving her looking as pale and drained as she felt.
By the third year Lena had abandoned the bottle in favor of late night prowls deap within the alleys of Kings Row. Punching the shit out of random skullheads and methed-out gangsters could never compare to the thrill of a deadly dance with widowmaker or the heartpounding midbattle rush of a raid against Talon, but it was something. Even if the comparison was achingly dull and watered out. With these faceless thugs, Lena didn't even need to try.
Sometimes Lena would wonder what Winston would say if he could see her now. This usually led to her falling back on the bottle, falling alsleep on her couch after crying with a framed picture of the entire team clutched at her chest.
(Sometimes Lena will compare the tiny version of her in the picture with her reflection and marvels dimly at the difference)
By the fourth year Lena still finds herself waking up on hazy Sunday mornings expecting to hear Athena greet her from the holo screen on her bedside table. Other times she notice a new scratch on her chronal accelerator and think about asking Winston if she should be worried only to remember with a jolt that she's not allowed to talk to Winston now and it just about breaks her.
The most memorable occasion Lena can recall is stumbling home, broken and bloody after a reckless fight against three skullheads at once, hand poised over Angela's number for a split second before remembering that there's no point and slamming her holopad down on the coffee table to go search for the first aid kit.
(Lena does her best not to imagine what Angela would think because it hurts almost as much as winston.)
By the beginning of the fifth year Lena gives up. She has spent all her tears and headaches and screams and all that's left is apathy.
Apathy, Lena finds out, is far better than sobbing into a bottle of whiskey. The days blead into each other and Lena goes through all the motions she knows by heart. Work, eat, sleep. Again, and again.
To drained to fight anymore, Lena spends her nights watching trash TV and falling asleep on the couch. By now Lena feels to far gone to care about the crick in her neck that follows.
The cold gets to her. A lot of things still get to her. Like the crushing weight of her accelerator. Sometime Lena will find that her hands have strayed to the straps and buckles of their own accord. She longs to take them off and fall into the abyss. Anything would be better than this cold, grey life.
But then Lena thinks of Winston and how upset he got everytime her accelerator broke and the way Angela would shudder and pinch the bridge of her nose whenever Lena came back from limbo and she decides to let her hands fall and orders takeout instead.
(Sometimes, Lena doesn't eat at all and crawls into her cold, sqeaky bed instead)
Sometimes, Lena will sit outside on cold park benches on less-cold days, watching the people go about their days and she'll wonder what it might've been like if their had been no overwatch at all.
Lena always ends up deciding she doesn't really want to know. Because the thought of having a perfectly happy, normal life oblivious to what she could have had hurts more to think about than she'll admit. Had anyone pointed out that a normal could have been better, could have spared her all the pain that led to her sitting out in the cold right now she probably would have punched them.
(Because the pain was worth it, wasn't it?)
Lena is in the middle of work when her holopad goes off. No one ever calls Lena so she wipes the grease of her hands and picks it up. She nearly drops it again though, when she sees the number.
It's Winston.
Several emotions run through her.
The strongest one is hope.
There are tears in her eyes as she answers the call. Winston is calling. Her best friend is calling and jesus christ is she tired of being sad and alone!
"Winston? Is that you luv? It's been too long!"
(It really has.)
Within twenty four hours Lena is safely tucked away in her old room at headquarters. It wasn't very hard. She'd abstained from buying any material items over the years.
(The only thing she'd really wanted was her family back.)
Her accelerator is humming with a strength she hasn't felt in years (five years, in fact) and from the crack in the doorway she can hear the heavy footsteps and excited greetings of old friends who happened to be in the country.
Lena smiles, snuggling further in the faded blue blanket that smells like home and closes her eyes before Athena can make anymore comments about her blood pressure.
Angela will be doing much more than nag when she gets here and finds out just how bad Lena is at taking care of her self.
Winston isn't even a doctor and he knew just by looking at her. Athena's comments on her vitals hadn't helped her case that she was fine really! And that she was just happy to be home.
Winston had only huffed and ushered her to her room because it was midnight anyways forgodsakes Lena!
Lena could hear Winston outside now, shushing people because Lena had gotten here first, looking like crap and desperately needing a nap.
The last thing Lena heard before drifting off was the creak of the front door and Winston calling out Angela's name a tad nervously because he just knew that the first thing the medic would be doing was a full checkup on everyone.
Lena smiled in her sleep.
It was warm wasn't it?