It was on the clear and quiet nights that Jack often wondered why he even bothered. Maybe because he was the only one who could, or because he just had nothing better to do. It was hard keeping busy when everyone thought you were dead.

Even if Overwatch was reunited, cobbled back together from whoever was still left to fight, it had no place in the world anymore. It was outdated, irrelevant, painfully similar to himself at one time. The only difference was that he carved a new niche for himself, a new name under a new creed. He didn't stick where he didn't belong, and he didn't fool himself into thinking he could fight a war alone.

He almost pitied the new Overwatch, doomed against the Omnic resurge… but that wasn't what he was here for. He was looking for just one person. She went by Widowmaker, but her name was Amélie Lacroix. One of Overwatch's very first traitors.

Under the shade of Tokyo twilight, she proved difficult to find. There was no other Talon activity nearby to track her with, and Jack's visor couldn't pick out anything from the shadows of the streets below other than a bored security detail milling outside the warehouse. If the rooftops weren't similarly guarded she might have already set up shop on one of them. Jack himself had claimed the highest point before she could, hauling his old bones up a metal tower to scan the area.

If she was here, she was in hiding… for now. All Jack could do was grit his teeth and wait for her to come out. In better, more naive days scouting would have been a job for the ones who couldn't shoot straight yet, the only job they could do without fucking up somehow. It was a humiliating demotion from commander, but one he had to accept; a one man army meant having to do everything, after all. He was scout, medic and commander all weighed on one body. And a soldier, most of all.

An hour, two hours, three, however many passed with barely a twitch in Jack's coiled muscles or the fingers wrapped around his pulse rifle. He could see red even when he blinked, yet all that changed was subtle flicker of shadows. So much focus was trained through his visor that he neglected his other senses, didn't hear the faint crunch of heels on gravel below him or the click of a bullet sliding into a barrel. He might have missed her entirely if not for her own pride leaking out in a low chuckle, yanking his vision down to the rooftop. The metal of her rifle was warmer than her whole body, the thermal cameras in her helmet assaulting his visor with bright glares. However long she'd been camped out below him for, she hadn't noticed him hanging above her yet. And she wouldn't with her eyes stapled to her sniper scope, poised like a viper waiting to strike. Or, more fittingly, like a spider.

Jack shifted his frozen weight, inching towards the railing of his sentry spot. He could shoot her right now, but she'd take all her secrets to hell with her. But if he left his gun, if he landed just right on top of her, he'd at least knock her away from the rifle. "Right then, come to Daddy…"

The metal platform groaned as he vaulted off the tower, a stubborn grumble that got Amélie's attention and had her rolling aside just before he landed where she'd been lying a second before. Her rifle was loaded but abandoned and left askew, aimed at a man leaving the warehouse in a blurr as Jack ducked to avoid a vicious heeled kick.

"You've gotten quite the makeover, Amélie!" He grunted from exertion, but the mask carried his voice over in a rough echo as he weaved to avoid her attacks. They paused only for a second, long enough for him to retreat behind the tower and gather his strength. Two goals came immediately to him; prevent the assassination, and capture her alive. Though the second one was more or less optional, as long as he got what he needed from her.

"And how do you know my name?" she asked, almost shocking him with how much her voice had changed. The accent was still there, effortlessly elegant like the rest of the Amélie he remembered… but with a cold venom seeping through it. Even under his heavy jacket he couldn't stop a shiver, one he only barely managed to keep out of his reply.

"I've gotten wise in my old age." His visor offered a rough outline of her fighting style, enough for him to counter her at least as he rolled out of his cover.

"Not wise enough to hide from thermals…" She sounded much closer now, right behind him in fact as he soon discovered with a heavy set of gauntlets crashing down on his head. His covered chin smacked against the rooftop and his visor jolted, teeth clattering in his ringing skull as she leapt over him and swiped her rifle up from its stand.

"But certainly old enough to be causing Talon a lot of bother, Soixante-Seize," she hissed over her shoulder, before taking off across a long line of flat roofs. If his head wasn't already daze, Jack would have had to take a second to recover from the sight of her outfit… not something one would usually wear for killing people. Certainly not something Amélie would wear, even with her bleached icy skin. What had they done to her… was this the Amélie that always existed?

But that wasn't important; her window of opportunity was closing now with every second, and she had to reposition to keep it open. That's what he surmised from her frantic pace, how she kept glancing across at her distant target and the mass of bodyguards following him. He shared some of the feeling, only having seconds to decide if he had time to fetch his gun and still be able to catch up to her. Of course he didn't have time, because whoever was up there in the stars really didn't like him, so he was left with nothing but a biotic field and his own fists as he pelted after her.

At least she, or Talon, knew who he was now. Being a nuisance was finally getting him some credit.

"So what brings you all the way over here? Paris not so pretty this time of year?" he called to her as she slammed the rooftop guards ahead down with a grappling hook, saving them both the trouble of avoiding them. His visor blinked at the edge of his vision, demanding his attention as his boots pounded the concrete, and when he finally fiddled with it he suddenly heard Amélie's voice like a clear death whistle in his ears, taunting him from afar.

"I'm sure you already know of the Shimada clan's obligations to Talon... they failed to deliver." He did know, having taken care of the Shimada's less legal operations himself, so it wasn't that news that surprised him enough to lose track of her. Somehow her own setup could link into his own… which meant it was stolen Overwatch technology. He might have been angered if he wasn't just as guilty of thievery, or moreso if he wasn't trying to find out where she'd disappeared to. The rooftops ended just before he made himself stop with a chasm between the next track of them, and with nothing but a trail of downed guards behind him. In losing his focus for just a few seconds, he lost her for good.

"And you're here to send a message?" he grunted, short growls replacing gasps for air. However far away she was, he could still hear her like he was right next to him, like old and better times.

"Not a message. Just a bullet through someone's head… a shame that it has to be yours now."

There was a whistle of wind around her as she spoke, revealing she was high up… in the same distant vantage spot on the tower with her rifle on the railing, something his visor only showed him when the red sight from her scope aimed right in the center of it.

"Bonne nuit, mon cher." That almost tender whisper would have been the last thing he heard… if not for luck. The bullet fell just short of his forehead, splitting and cracking on the carbon of his mask instead of his skin. His mouth filled with rattling pain and shrapnel, broken pieces showering from his chin as the impact knocked him hard on his back. His visor was cracked into two halves, fizzling and spitting static across his eyes. His jaw ached as his mask crumbled away and exposed his bare face to the night air, and to Amélie herself as she soon loomed over him. He couldn't try to push himself up without a stab of pain erupting from his ashen mouth, and he could do nothing as Amélie knelt, staring down like he was a poor dying animal. She certainly had the look of a triumphant predator, even with her cameras pulled away from her cold eyes flickering in his malfunctioning visor.

"I don't often miss, Soixante-Seize… you are a special kind of prey, no?" She brushed aside the shattered remains of his mask with a chilling touch, pulled the broken glass away from his eyes like she was unwrapping a present-

Except she stopped very suddenly once his eyes were uncovered. Her fingers froze, as if they weren't already cold enough, her proud smile dissolved into something… confused. She blinked, hesitant hints of warmth trying to creep across her pupils as she pulled away from him with her face just a hint paler now. She looked like she'd seen a ghost, because she had.

"...Jack?" she whispered. The pain in his face was fading, but even if every move was agony he still would have sat up instantly, every muscle tense with suspicion.

"You… recognise me?" He hadn't accounted for this, hadn't thought she'd see his face or even remember him if she did. But the shock, the stricken surge of sorrow across her face, no one could fake that.

"I… you're supposed to be... " One of her hands fluttered across her chest, half over revealed skin and cupping her heart. Her eyes started to bulge, her mouth gasping as she started to choke on thin air. Jack caught her just before she collapsed on the concrete.

"Amélie!" He held her loosely as she seized, trying to splutter as she kept the hand firm over her heart, as if it was trying to leap out her chest. When Jack placed his own hand over it, he could hear it thumping even through her trembling palm. "Talk to me, Amélie! What's wrong, what's happening!?" Never mind that she'd just tried to kill him, he couldn't let her die yet. Her heart was running away under her skin, flooding it with a new flush of colour. The seizure stopped, but she was still shaking in his arms. Her eyes were clamped closed, but he could see tears on her lashes.

"Jack… I'm… it's… s-so cold…" Amélie could only whisper through chattering teeth, nothing like the acidic edge she used to have in her quiet whimper. Her skin was a pale grey now, dappled with sweat that soaked through her suit. This wasn't Talon's greatest weapon. This was the Amélie he once knew, her shadow.

"Here. Wear this." Jack kept a firm embrace around her as he pulled his jacket off, draping it around her shoulders. She sighed in the new warmth, wrapping it tightly around her as she curled closer to him. Under his hand her heart still thudded deep in her chest, but not as frantic as before. He used another hand to wipe her forehead, pushing damp strands of hair from her face.

"Now I'm gonna get you somewhere safe," he said quietly. "And you're gonna tell me everything I've missed being dead. Okay?"

"...Okay." She only had strength to nod once, shifting in his arms so he could carry her. Both of their rifles were left to the wind.