Gibraltar, for all its quirks, was downright bleak sometimes.

It had never been meant to be used the way it was now, and despite the active efforts of the recalled agents to add some personality to the launch facility, it still lacked that little bit of something that would make it truly comfortable. There was the odd poster here and there, small notes left in unlikely places, handmade trinkets magnetized to the walls. Small clumps of wilting flowers grown in pilfered mugs, weird finds from battlefields that became memorialized for all the wrong reasons. Someone had tucked a sharp, jagged pair of broken sunglasses they'd found last week onto the bristles of the old mop in the corner. The thing never got used anyways, and there was a sort of unspoken agreement that the sunglasses were never to be removed.

All small things, but the intent was clear enough. Winston didn't seem to mind the little additions. If anything, he seemed happy to see something more than the few things he had left to make his workspace a little less gloomy. And yet in the end, there was only so much you could do to rock and pipe to make it feel like a home.

Hana was still trying to convince herself that it was charming.

She hadn't been on base long enough to think beyond staking out her own space and crashing for a few hours, but she'd already passed a surprising number of memorabilia lining the hallways. There were still people to meet and names to remember and an impression to make among these strangers who were just as crazy as she was for getting involved like this, but for now, the quiet of the massive launch facility was just what she had been looking for.

Noise fit her tastes better than silence on any day, but the weight of what was happening, what all of this meant didn't exactly make this "any day." The crushing knowledge of the home she couldn't return to, of what waited there for her if she did, only made it even more unbearable to think somedays.

But today, she was not seeking the quiet for herself.

Today she was silent for the pictures, the names in the mismatched frames along the halls.

There were mini memorials to former agents who had fallen in the line of duty in the more secluded parts of the makeshift basecamp, the photos scrapped from old albums and newspapers and wallets and just about anywhere anyone could find them. Some were projected holos, others a simple sketched portrait. But the names and the faces were all there, and Hana had made it a point to stop at each one along the way to look them in the eye and read them once, twice, a third time over.

She'd stopped in front of the little glass case about a minute ago, and already she was re-reading the inscription inside for the fifth time.

The bravery and sacrifice of the Fourth division led by Strike Commander Jack Morrison and Commander Gabriel Reyes (then recent graduates of the highly experimental and still controversial Soldier Enhancement Program) was considered the turning point of the first phase of what would later be known as the First Omnic Crisis. It is thanks to the efforts of these strike teams that we turned the tide of war, and they remained stoically dedicated in both mind and spirit in the constant face of death.

"We," Jack mused with all the casualness of a man reading out the day's forecast, "are going to die."

"Huh. Guess I'll never know if my lotto numbers panned out this week."

"Glad we're on the same page."

Gabriel spat dirt from his lips, his teeth grit as he twisted back to glance around their cover. The downed omnic didn't provide much to begin with, but it was enough for the two of them to get their bearings. As it was, a few bullets had already passed through the hunk of junk and come a little too close for comfort. The steady flow of heat down his side from the bullet he hadn't quite manage to dodge, however, was a constant reminder that they had to move before this pile of metal collapsed in on itself and left them with nothing but their charisma and a couple of very expensive corpses.

Where they would move in the middle of a quaint little plain of four acres of goddamn nothing but omnics, wheat, and dirt, however, was something they were still working on.

Jack shifted in his crouch beside Gabriel, the pulse rifle in his hands thrumming as he leveled it and fired blindly around the bulky torso of their handy dandy deadbeat 'bot lean-to. He'd work on shortening the name later.

The sound of shattering reached them over the rattle of gunfire as Jack's bullets struck something, and Gabriel shared a look with him. It was brief, but they both understood.

One down.

"That just leaves five hundred thousand and a quarter more to go."

"Gabe."

"But good job, we appreciate you."

"Y'know, I might just kill you first."

Gabriel sneered as he swapped places with Jack, the blond hastily reloading as he shuffled further behind the cover. Gabriel leaned around the side of their 'bot and fired off four concise shots, but the return fire was depressingly more impressive than the echoes of the shotguns, and he found himself ducking back behind cover before he could so much as reply. He switched with Jack once again and ignored the pull of skin at his side (oh good, he was starting to heal, took it damn well long enough) as Jack took to playing Rambo once more.

"How could you say that to someone who'll happily split their lottery winnings with you?" He had to shout now to be heard over the noise. "Ninety-ten."

"Ninety and ten."

"Polly want a cra-"

"That all I'm worth to you? You cut me deep, Reyes. Real deep."

"See," Gabriel said as he leaned around the side of their cover and calmly annihilated an omnic that had decided to try its luck at charging the soldiers, "it could have been seventy-thirty, but you did just threaten my life. Where does that put us, Morrison."

"I didn't have to be here for this. I chose this one this time, this was your mission."

"Fair. But whose fault is it that we're forty five miles off track and pinned?"

"This wasn't me."

"So what I'm hearing aside from the bitching and moaning here is sixty five and-"

Their cover chose that exact moment to implode, shrapnel and bullets flying through the air around them as they up and burst into a sprint as one. No words passed between them, but they fell into step beside one another as they beat the hastiest retreat either had likely ever hoped to in their respective careers, the sound of pursuit hot on their tails as they ducked and wove. Gabriel spared Jack a glance as he felt the hole in his torso pulling with each step.

"Ah, shit. You good?"

Jack was breathless when he replied, which was an answer in and of itself. "Give it to me straight doc, how much of my goddamn face did that just take off?"

Gabriel looked away from the grotesque furrows the last round of lucky bullets and shrapnel had left along Jack's forehead and cheek. The cuts were deep, far deeper than Jack would be able to fix on his own. They might have been able to heal slightly faster than normal, but at this rate they'd never catch up without some sort of med intervention. Gabriel pointedly looked away as they upped their sprint, dashing for whatever the hell else was waiting for them on the other side of the open field.

"Eh. It didn't leave any more than you really need."

"Oh. Great."

"I mean, what good is a face anyways, it's really just there to keep the wind out-"

Laughter on the battlefield was just as bad as a snicker at a funeral, but that didn't mean it never happened. If coping with hell required a bit of ill-aimed levity, then they'd happily laugh their asses off before this was all over.

These two men displayed courage, honor, and above all else, a loyalty to their cause that ultimately led to their ascent among our growing ranks. Their trust in their own abilities and ultimately unwavering faith in humanity in their ongoing struggle kept them afloat as years of turmoil passed indefinitely. They never once lost sight of their passion for human possibility.

In another life, Gabriel may very well have just up and become an assassin or something. God only knew it paid better than what he'd first signed on for here. If it hadn't been for the SEP, he'd probably still be eating that reprocessed canned crap on 7th that tasted exactly like it cost. They just as well could have been shredding the bills you handed them and adding it in as protein supplements and nobody would have been any the wiser.

The job itself was really no different than what they wanted him to do here anyways. He'd just have to be a bit quieter, a bit more subtle, a bit more of a cynic than he already was at times.

A bit more like them.

"You capable of hating anything, Indiana?"

Jack looked up from the report on his knee to Gabriel, who was sitting on the back of the couch with a remote held loosely in his hands. Ana hadn't even bothered looking up from across the room, her attention still fully focused on the screen hovering in front of her. At some point in the last few hours her legs had folded up beneath her in her chair, and by now Jack would be amazed if she wouldn't simply crumple the second she stood.

They'd had the main screen on the news for most of the morning. Well, Jack had the screen on the news, what with it being his screen. Gabriel had knocked on his door about half an hour after it had happened, and they'd been sitting in relative silence as round after round of useless drinks were poured for one another. Ana had joined shortly after. The drinks were turned down after her sixth. The first two hours had been spent paging through every file, every CC camera recording, everything they possibly had that could explain the crap that had happened last night.

The news was a moot point. They all knew nothing would be there, but neither was quite so willing to sit in silence anymore.

Gabriel's question went unanswered for a long time, long enough to have the man actually turn his attention away from the screen to look at Jack. There was nothing there in his eyes, no jest, none of that standoffish stubbornness that had started sparking a few months back when discussions regarding the shifting ranks began. Nothing had been said outright, but the SEP members were smart enough to know what was happening. They'd known when Gabriel had been chosen to lead Overwatch that there had been more reasons than they'd let on. But this...

Last night's events had blindsided all of them, and Gabriel's eyes just couldn't put off what he truly felt enough to bother.

Jack looked away.

"No. I'm not."

"Bull," Gabriel deadpanned. Ana still hadn't looked up.

Truth be told, Jack did hate. He hated the fact he was in this situation. He hated the state the world had to be in to begin this war to begin with. He hated that in times like these, there was virtually nothing he could do to fix them. He hated, he hated, he hated.

And he hated that he couldn't admit just how much he truly did.

"We're both in a position of command, you know just as well as I do that-"

The remote shattered against the wall. Ana finally looked up, dark circles beneath her tired eyes as she watched Gabriel closely. He was standing now, but Jack still would not take his focus away from the intel on his knee.

"How else are we supposed to feel about this? What are they expecting us to do when we follow through?" It wasn't anger in his voice, or rage that had prompted the broken remote. Frustration, bitterness, all of it was there in Gabriel's voice. But not anger. "How can you not hate this?"

Jack exhaled slowly. He'd done that a lot more lately. His mother would laugh if she'd seen it. You look like your father whenever you do that, stop it. You're too young to have that kind of weight in a sigh like that.

Ana spoke up before he could.

"Gabriel."

The word was soft. But there was so much to it, so much pain beneath the sad, quiet lilt of it that it commanded the attention of the entire room. Jack and Gabriel both watched her stand (and sure enough her legs had fallen asleep if her shuffling meant anything) to cross the room. Her arms were around Gabriel before he could figure out what was happening.

Jack had seen it coming, but Gabriel clearly hadn't. The hug was gentle, and yet Gabriel stiffened all the same. But that one gesture, that one small hand on the back of the man's head and Ana's own head resting quietly on his shoulder, was enough.

Gabriel relaxed, returning the hug somewhat stiffly as he rumbled a sigh. The room was quiet but for the news and the anchors discussing just how much they didn't know, more at 11.

They didn't know when the war would end. They didn't know how much Overwatch had had a hand in the recent explosions in Egypt. They didn't know if anyone would ever be available to comment after the amount of meddling the UN had steeped themselves in.

And Jack turned back to what he knew.

Lacroix, A. Status: Unknown. Lacroix, G. Status: Deceased.

There was a photo in the next case. Hana knelt to see three people staring stoically back at her, their eyes glinting with pride and their faces as serious as a heart attack. It was a bit of an intimidating picture, really. They exuded enough power between the three of them to level a small country, and that was just from their eyes alone.

The label below listed them out. She recognized them from the news many years before, of course, but the feeling she got from them now was much different.

Blackwatch Commander Gabriel Reyes. Strike Commander Jack Morrison. Captain Ana Amari. In Memoriam.

A photo taken at the height of the crisis. The strike force had undergone massive upheaval as Commander Morrison relieved Commander Reyes of his position as Strike Commander. It was uncertain if they would fight alongside one another again after such an event. This photo was taken many months after the decision had been acted upon. Captain Amari was an integral part of the crisis in these times, her strong will and stern hand providing the binding that ultimately kept the force together.

"You can't smile in it, what are you doing?"

"What do you mean I can't smile? It's a photograph, that's what you do."

Ana went to smack Gabriel's shoulder, leaning around where Jack stood between them. The commander rolled his eyes as Gabriel expertly dodged the swipe.

"It's not a prom photo," Ana said as she tucked back a strand of hair that had escaped from behind her ear, "this is our legacy. We need to show the world we're not as divided as they think. This is what they will wake up to see in the morning."

"And they're not waking up to our smiling faces because…?"

"Because they don't want our smiling faces," Jack cut in then, his shoulders rolling back as he stood tall. "They want what we can do."

Gabriel exchanged a look with the agent they'd snagged to take the photo. The cadet had been a bit panicky at first, being accosted by the three highest ranking officials on base and all that. But he had to admit, the amount of patience involved so far was enough to earn the kid a promotion.

Shaking his head ruefully, Gabriel straightened in place as well with a grumble. "Fine. But if the people wanted sticks up our asses this bad they should have just shoved 'em in themselves."

"They tried," Ana said lightly as she tilted her head, her face settling into an easy, neutral stare. Gabriel and Jack followed suit, their faces naturally falling into their default because-I-said-so states. The agent taking the photo looked terrified for a moment before steeling their expression.

Resting Commander Face was a force to be reckoned with.

The flash went off, the kid handed the camera back like it was on fire, and in seconds the three had their photo. They dismissed the agent, and when the kid was completely out of sight, the three looked down to see just what they'd be showing the world as they displayed the strong new unity of the old strike force.

A moment passed.

Then two.

Eight had gone by before Jack snorted.

It did them all in in the end. Gabriel had a hand firmly on the wall, a wheezy laugh the only thing he could manage for some time. Ana's head was tilted back as her arms crossed over her stomach, she too bursting into laughter from the sheer ridiculousness of the final result. Jack at the very least stayed the most composed, even if he had to physically put a hand over his mouth to keep himself from outright snickering.

"What," Gabriel gasped, "the hell is this trying to get across?"

It was a good question. The photo was all kinds of tough that the three never quite realized they could fully pull off. Combined together in one place like this was just…

"This is horrible."

They stopped laughing eventually, the mirth dying out slowly as they went back to looking at the photo in full. Jack paused after his apt review of the thing.

"We're using it."

Switzerland.

The third case was empty.

Hana scanned it for plaques, for writing, for anything, but the glass was just glass. There didn't appear to be much room for anything inside, but it was the first memorial in her wanderings she had found that had not been completed. Her brow furrowed as she looked back to the photograph the next case over.

Of all the ones to finish, this seemed the most important.

Her hand was resting on the glass when she registered footsteps, and she tucked it neatly into the pocket of her jeans. She didn't bother looking up. There was only one person on base who sounded like that when they walked.

The footsteps stopped behind her. She kept her eyes glued on the case.

"Oh. Uh, hello. I was unaware anyone had found this area yet."

She was almost relieved it was only Winston. She wasn't feeling much like meeting-and-greeting, and he'd been one of the first she'd met.

Hana nodded her hello, her eyes still not lifting. "Yes, it's…" She started, trailing off as she realized she didn't quite have a word for the memorials. Her eyes traced down the impossibly long line of frames and cases. Sad? Horrible? Something that never should have happened to begin with?

She settled on a slightly lame "it's thoughtful," but when she glanced back to Winston, she knew he could tell what she'd meant. He had that same look in his eyes she'd seen in the mirror sometimes, that same knowledge of how easily all of this could have been avoided.

"Thank you. I find it's important to remember those who paved the way for us now." Winston seemed proud of that at the very least. His heart truly was in the right place, and if the recall hadn't proved it, it was little acts like these that did.

He seemed to register the display she was standing in front of then, as a furrow appeared in his brow. He looked carefully into her face.

"You've been reading them?"

"All of them," she said. "That's fine, right?"

"Of course, of course, that's what they're here for. They don't get much company."

Something about the way he said it made Hana's heart hurt. She turned away from him, the glint of sadness in his eyes not something she wanted to acknowledge. Winston had known these people. It must have been much worse for him to walk this hall and have them watch him leave alone.

"This case," she started slowly, "what was it supposed to be? It's the only one like this."

Winston stared at the empty glass long and hard. He cleared his throat uncomfortably before answering.

"To tell the truth, I'm not sure. I meant for it to be a timeline of the great things our team had achieved, but I was… I did not think to remember just how fast they…"

Gabriel, goddamn it, what is happening h-

Is the smoke not a big enough sign for you, Commander? Or did the building collapsing give it away-

Winston cleared his throat once again, and Hana look purposefully away. She had gotten the gist of how Overwatch had crumbled. Everyone knew about the Swiss base. But there were certain things nobody knew, things nobody would speak of, and if they did, they were just rumors at the end of the day.

But Winston knew it all. And he had to live with that.

"Either way," he startled her by speaking up so soon, his voice back to its normal pitch, even if it did sound a little forced, "this is no place to start the day. I have some people I would like you to meet, if you are ready."

Hana felt the eyes on her back, the dozens of photographs staring, silently trying to say something they never would be able to. Every line of text, every hour spent trying to dig out the photographs to remember these people by, every bit of effort they put into ending this war...

If they all could do this, then she could too.

She turned her back in full to them, looking up at Winston with an easy grin.

"I was born ready!"

Months down the line, someone would shift the cases to clean the floor beneath them, the sunglasses finally removed from the mop (for the greater good, some would argue, though most said the exact opposite). The small line of writing etched down the side facing the wall went unseen despite it being exposed to the hall for the first time since it had been purposefully placed against the stone.

Here's to us, those like us, damn few, and they're never dead.

A/N: what do you do when you lose all of your computer data in the middle of writing a monster of a fic

you suck it up and start writing warmup oneshots to steel yourself for rewriting your 10k chapter you had planned on posting a month ago

Thank you for reading, I've wanted to write a fic in this style for a while now! couple'a things here:

Blizzard where is my Lacroix lore pls I am Dying

The photo they're taking is exactly the one you're thinking of. Gabriel just looks like he's doing it out of spite and it's oddly hilarious to me. If you're not sure: . ?w=685

That last line is a Scottish toast, but modified. The original is "Here's tae us, wha's like us? Damn few, and they're a'deid" which more or less means "here's to us, those like us, there's damn few and they're all dead."