Passion could be a beautiful thing when utilized properly.
During the crisis, back when the choices of the world had fallen effortlessly into right or wrong, it had been one of the only true driving forces left to believe in.
What good was money to the death toll of millions? Where was the power in victory over the devastated and scarred?
Who were the real heroes when it depends on which side you took?
No, what had actually pushed those remaining to fight an impossible war had been passion. Overwatch and the United Nations themselves had clutched onto the concept tightly enough to imbed it like a brand against everyone involved's hearts.
The desire to survive, to live, to change, to be greater than their odds.
Many could argue that the word was remarkable in nature because, unlike so many things, it remained unmoving.
It was eternal.
So unlike the lines which never stopped shifting.
Those learned to blur.
The grey spaces of "evil" and "heroic" changed in both texture and hue every second. The thundering of gunshots, every illness untreatable even for her, the white noise of screaming patients and soldiers she never saved, Angela learned a new shade to humanity hourly. A different faucet on a seemingly never ending gemstone.
The variables of humanity were so ever changing that the process of living itself could become exhausting.
Dr. Angela Ziegler had not been any more excused of controversy during the downfall of Overwatch than any one else. If anything many claimed her to be the biggest problem out of the entire organization. Despite her achievements and having saved so many lives, the world never ceased to question, who was she to play god?
The drowning static of criticism was deafening even on the best of days.
However, every time Angela found herself shaking with the unseen weight of her own life someone was always there. Grasping her, pulling her back from the darkness with an extended hand wearing a wedding band identical to her own.
Fareeha was a constant.
Someone so passionate by nature that it was unlikely she'd ever change. The embodiment of "good".
The taller woman's warmth chased every demon away on the nights made frigid by memories from the past. The natural bend of her arms when finding their place along Angela's neck, or hips, would always lead to a hug that never failed to make the doctor smile.
Fareeha was every bit of the honor and grace left in their dying world.
They had passion. Their marriage, when they fought, when they cried, when they made love as though fearing every touch would be their last. It was a fairytale in every sense of the word.
Thought this story just so happened to be one without a happy ending.
Or even a possible one.
Moira O'Deorain had begun her work with Overwatch far before Angela's research could make it's mark. Though fate had been quite impressionable to such similar forces of power.
Their paths crossed many times, work, meetings and formal events that demanded both of their presences. None had been any more memorable than the last.
It wasn't until Blackwatch that Angela found the hand of the devil gripped tight against her hair.
Moira never kissed her with kind words. Everything about their nights together was calculated to hurt. To be felt. It was a different breed of passion that ignited dangerously fast.
Teeth and idle hands would move hard enough to scatter bruises, while nails raked raw lines down each other's spines.
They never made love because there was none to give. Workplace arguments would trail back to one or the other's private quarters and leave both sore in countless ways, but never vice versa.
Their affairs behind locked doors were never to be used as leverage, an unspoken rule. Respect was given where deserved, but otherwise the two created an understanding that the outside world could never touch.
Neither ever mentioned the trifling matters usually mandated with constant sex. There was never any need for a post comfort talk. At best they made only short remarks of gratitude before the sound of clothing being re-zipped and buttoned silenced any chance for deeper conversation.
It was clinical, practical, but passionate all the same. The only outlet Angela had against the chaos.
By any standard though, Fareeha had been a saving grace.
After years of solitude, with Moira having disappeared like a mist not long after the disbandment and the rest of Overwatch scattering across the globe, Angela had melted into the other woman's first contact.
Fareeha was warm in ways the doctor had long forgotten to be. Her love was vibrant, and beautiful, and so different than the unshaded bleakness humanity.
Angela had wanted nothing more than to be as good for her wife as she was for her.
Perhaps, in another life, she could have been.
When Moira's mouth found itself between Angela's legs for the forth time of the evening, the blonde did not feel "bad" any more so than she felt "good".
She didn't pause to think of Fareeha's eyes when they had peered up at her two nights ago from the exact same position, nor did any intrusive thoughts of her wife manage to drown out the sound of her own desperate whining and pleas for Moira to go faster.
Angela merely felt. Because that was all that there was to do.
Yes, as shocking as it may sound, not every call for action required Angela's assistance. As much as she preferred being by her wife's side in the midst of battle there were still orders to follow.
She may have once been their best medic once upon a time, but now she was far from alone in that right.
Not since the recall.
The saddest part, if you could even truly consider the circumstances all that tragic, was how easily Moira had returned to Angela's life.
She had simply appeared. With no warning, no mention, not even a rumor to consider. One lonely evening while the doctor had been in her study an all too familiar body had draped itself across the blonde's shoulders.
"Hello again, Angel."
It was as though no time had passed. Moira eyes, still as expecting and predatory as all those years ago, had pinned Angela to her chair.
There had been a small moment of pause, of consideration, before the two begun to claw against the other's clothing. Tearing fabric in search of a salvation that had been missing too long.
No marks though. Not with Fareeha returning the next day.
The doctor would not make an exception to that rule until a few weeks later. When one in particular mission demanded that Strike Commander Ziegler-Amari be flown out to Dorado for an entire month.
Angela couldn't walk properly for days during that time. She also demanded that Moira never stay, despite knowing fully well she would return every nightfall.
If the redhead had wanted to comment she never did and for that Angela was grateful. Small blessings given how undeserving she was of even them.
Don't be mistaken, any person could argue that she was far from the worst human being alive. But Angela was also all too aware of the unlikelihood of ever being graced to enter heaven. Far too many choices have pushed her past that hope.
Though the devil, as terribly "kind" as she was, kept her palm extended always.
For every moment her wife remained outside of their home, a familiar shadow waited patiently in the wings.
Moira never left anything that could not heal naturally, though speeding up the process was wordlessly an option.
She was never gentle, nor warm, or safe. She never asked to remain, or end their routine, or threaten to expose the blonde.
She was everything Angela silently never dared voice in desire.
Moira was a different kind of passion, twisted so beautifully in sin and shapeless in a way that Fareeha could never be.
An old habit in human form and "evil" in its most basic sense. Angela 'Mercy' Ziegler's own personal calling card, that allowed itself to be bent to the doctor's will, while bending the doctor herself over every available surface.
Perhaps one day she would find enough of her remaining courage to tell Fareeha the truth. To push her selfish desires for both women down far enough to give her wife an honesty she can no longer fantom existing.
Maybe, who knows?
After all, the devil's favorite passions are kept in secrets such as these.
