Amélie wanders around a Watchpoint searching for her husband.
Short exploration of what the relationship between a civilian ballerina (Amélie) and Overwatch's leading strategist (Gérard) might have been like.
Cleaned-up: Nov 27 2018
The sound of Amélie Lacroix's footsteps echoes across the floor as her heel strike the tiles. Her dark dress flows and snaps around her calves as she marches down the hall. Normally, she wouldn't wear such a thing out in public; one shoulders are so last season, it's half a size too large, and a seam along her ribs needs to be re-stitched, but tonight isn't an ordinary night. On an ordinary night, her husband would be home by now, holding her in his arm, in bed. On the bright side, Amélie's eyes drift around the empty military base; no one is around to notice her fashion foul.
She stops at the end of the corridor cutting her metronome-like canter short. Amélie glances down one hallway and then the other. Both are frighteningly well lit and are decorated with orange and blue patterns on the walls. She purses her lips together.
She has no idea which way she needs to go.
After several minutes of fruitlessly trying to use the compass on her phone to orientate herself Amélie spots a directional sign on the wall, chuckling at her obliviousness, she puts her phone away. She squints at the words, trying to decipher which language they are in. Overwatch is an international organization after all. The letters start drifting around and blurring together.
Amélie blinks rapidly and rubs her eyes. It's just after midnight, and she's feeling the last three weeks of rehearsal. Eyes temporarily refreshed Amélie learns her husband should be down the left hallway. She starts off again, heels chipping away at the night's silence.
As she walks, she takes in her husband's workplace, an official Overwatch Watchpoint. The military base is similar to its more recognizable counterparts in Zürich but without the massive statues and wall-to-wall propaganda. The base, nicknamed "the Rabbit Hole" by its occupants is more compact in comparison to some of Overwatch's other locations but no less slick.
Amélie isn't a tech connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination, but she knows cutting-edge stuff when she sees it. And she sees it.
It's in the signs, the pavement, the door handles, the lights, the very nuts and bolts holding the building together. She can feel it in the cameras on her back and the sensors scanning her body. They've even managed to make the air smell better, cleaner, somehow. Around her, the walls and floor sparkle and glimmer artificially like the better tomorrow promised by the organization.
She knows she shouldn't be so cynical of a group that's saved so many lives and one her husband supports (a rare occurrence). But Amélie can't help but see the day when politics and red tape choke out the life of the organization and replace it with tour groups and tacky souvenirs. She fears Overwatch may become nothing more a trophy for the UN, proof of the good they once did.
Envisioning mildly terrible futures has always been a hobby of hers (or a bad habit, depends on who you ask). The gift of being a realist she supposes.
Eventually she reaches the end of her route. A pair of double doors, as shiny as the day they were built, blocks her path. Amélie whips her military ID out of her purse and presses it against the scanner in the wall. There's not even a pause before the panel beeps out:
"Access denied."
She frowns and tries again — another error sound. Amélie pulls out her other military ID, spouses seem to accumulate these things, and presses it flat to the scanner. The machine lets out another low synthetic protest. Denied.
Five more rounds of rejection and Amélie is contemplating if she rather try to fool the digital lock or walk all over the base searching for help when she hears the sound of someone clearing their throat. She looks over to see a young man in a blue Overwatch uniform has appeared in the empty booth to her left.
"Good evening ma'am. Do you need some assistance?" he asks in English.
Amélie nods and walks over mentally shifting to the other language.
"Good evening," she greets the guard. "There seems to be some sort of error. The lock doesn't recognize my ID."
Amélie flicks up her card between her two fingers, showing it to the man.
"I'm sorry to hear that ma'am; the locks have been acting up lately due to updates and all. I'll have to look you up manually. May I have your card?"
Amélie slides her card under the window. The guard takes it and swipes it through a card reader. Absent-mindedly he taps her card on the desk waiting for the computer to come up. Amélie clasps her purse in front of her pelvis and then realizes she's standing in sloppy first position. She drops her purse to one side and shuffles her feet, so they face forward. The guard clears his throat again and looks back to her.
"It's a beautiful tonight," he ventures.
Amélie gives him a polite smile; she's not really in the mood to make small talk.
"But not anywhere as beautiful as you," he adds on.
Internally Amélie sighs; she is far too tired to deal with bad pickup lines. Her polite smile becomes tighter. The guard shuffles uncomfortably at her lack of response.
"Thank you," she says far too late after the compliment.
The computer beeps having finally found her in the system. The guard places her card back under the window. Amélie reaches under and takes back her card.
"Ah, would you like an escort? I can give you a tour of the base. Where did you say you were headed again?" he asks.
A frown flickers across her face. She does not want an escort. She does not want the awkward small talk and lingering glances that will come with an escort. She does not want an escort to witness her husband in whatever state he may be in when she finds him. Most of all she just wants to get her husband and go back to bed.
"I'm sure there's no need for that," Amélie cuts in, "I'd hate to waste an Overwatch Agent's time."
The guard starts to protest, but the door has already slid open.
"Thank you." Amélie gives him a small nod and walks away.
"No problem. Um, have a good night!" he calls out.
Amélie presses on, moving deeper and deeper into the Rabbit Hole. She sees more people now. Most of them wear military uniforms or suits, all with their heads buried in datapads or paperwork. The smell of burnt coffee, ink, and politics waft through the air.
She raises her chin and walks with purpose through the mild chaos. No one looks at her twice. Amélie reaches the Vault's entrance, the base's highly secure, highly protected restricted area. Automated scanners and decontamination pods separate the lackeys from the experts. Just outside the screening is a wall of lockers; any devices that can store, transmit, or export data of any kind is not allowed in the Vault.
Amélie finds the locker under Lacroix and opens it on her second try (13-31-13, Gérard always funny about his superstitions). A small black purse joins a phone and leather wallet.
She closes the locker and walks over to the decontamination pods. The door closes behind her with a hiss. Servos whirl around her and a flash of red light slashes through her vision. The pod dings and announces that she is clean of all technological and biological contaminants. The pod's exit door does not open.
"You are not allowed in this part of the facility, Mrs. Lacroix," a synthetic voice chastises from the speakers above her.
"Hello to you too Athena," Amélie says happy to switch back to French. "We both are very aware of this considering you are the one who invited me up here. And thank you so much for directing me through the facility and opening that door back there for me, very courteous."
"My sensors indicate you are suffering from increased levels of cortisol, melatonin, and sarcasm," Athena says.
The pod door opens. Amélie steps through into the Vault.
"You sound like you're having a wonderful day yourself," she replies.
"I am operating at full capacity, and the base's productivity is at optimal levels."
Athena says nothing else as Amélie makes her way down the hallway checking nameplatess.
"Has my husband been rude to you again?" she ventures having found a door labeled Lacroix.
"Strategist Lacroix has repeatedly expressed concern that my systems are so heavily intergraded into Overwatch's mainframe. He is afraid it may become a security weakness."
Amélie frowns, old suspicions diehard she supposes but there is no reason Gérard can't be more subtle about it.
"I see. I promise I will speak to him. Now, if you please." She motions to the door.
The metal retracts into the wall without a sound revealing a wall of darkness that is randomly interrupted by flickers of light.
"Have a good night Athena."
"Take care, Mrs. Lacroix."
Amélie steps into the War Room.
Monitors decorate the walls like luminescent tiles; screens flash with newsfeeds, statistics, charts, and maps. Thick cables peak out between the gaps of the monitors; they drip downward and collect along the edge of the floor. Hundreds of holoscreens fill the space between the ceiling and the floor. The blue displays hang in the air like frozen fireflies, blinking and glittering under someone else's command. Balls of paper, legal notes, sandwich wrappers, and Styrofoam cups dotted with stale coffee litter the floor. Two or three cleaner-droids zip to and fro through the mess sweeping up dust and crumbs but leaving the paper untouched.
Standing at the only desk in the room, like a conductor before his orchestra is Gérard Lacroix. Accomplished polemologist, probability and statistics genius, Overwatch's leading strategist, and her husband.
Gérard stares at a group of thirty holoscreens arranged before him. The blue light reflects off the oil in his hair and gives his skin a strange sickly appearance. Among the text documents and profiles, Amélie recognizes LumériCo's logo, the Russian Omnium, a red stylized "T," the failed Moon Colony, and Mercy's Caduceus Staff.
"So close," Gérard mutters in French squinting at the group. His eyes glint dangerously.
Amélie has seen her husband seized by a fit of genius get lost in his projects, working for hours on end, attacking them with inhuman efficiency, accomplishing in days what would have taken a team of experts weeks. When he was like that Gérard became a force of nature, a living miracle.
This is not one of those times.
"Close. I'm so close," Gérard mumbles again.
He does not acknowledge Amélie as she walks closer. She can see the dried coffee in his pencil mustache, the ink under his nails, the smudges on his collar. His normally pristine suit is rumpled and creased from sitting or standing at odd angles. A chain of sticky notes trails from his pant leg.
"I'm so close," Gérard says baring his teeth, digging his fingers into the documents under his hands. "The connection, the lines between them, they are there. I can almost see them. I can practically taste it!"
Amélie looks away from Gérard to his floating collage.
"Is all this saved?" she asks resuming her path across the floor.
"Yes, yes of course," Gérard says with a little wave, not looking.
"Has it been back up?" Amélie asks circling behind him.
Gérard scoffs. "Has it been backed up? Do birds fly? Only to five different servers, the cloud, the satellite, three times by the AI, and whatever else they have hiding in the walls."
Amélie nods and looks down at the cables and papers on the floor. Her black heels follow the thick cords away from Gérard's desk to the wall.
"I'm so close," Gérard repeats. Then he frowns and stands up straight. "Perhaps, too close."
Then all the holoscreens vanish, the wall monitors cut to static, and the soft blue of his smart desk dies with a pathetic whine. Gérard freezes up. His obsidian eyes widen in shock. He stares into the space his notes just occupied; dozen upon dozens of hours of research gone in an instant.
"Amélie!" He roars spinning to face her; hands curled into fists.
Amélie stands near the wall outlet casually swinging the unplugged main power cord in her hand. She raises an eyebrow at his outburst, not impressed in the slightest.
"Amélie," Gérard repeats the rage gone from his voice. He rubs at his face and looks at her wearily.
She drops the power cord and struts over to him.
"What, what are you doing here? You aren't allowed in here," he mumbles as Amélie bends down and rips the sticky notes off his pant leg. "No one is allowed in here without an invitation when I am working, not even the Commanders. You shouldn't even be this deep in the base." Gérard's face pinches in confusion.
The backup light pop on bathing the room in soft white light. Amélie stands up and yanks at his shirt collar, straightening it. She brushes off the shoulder and front of his suit jacket, smoothing out the worst of the wrinkles.
"When has that ever stopped me before?" Amélie asks wiping the coffee out of his mustache with her thumb. She looks over her work and nods satisfied. Gérard looks at her with his brow furrowed, waiting for an answer.
Amélie hooks her finger into Gérard's tie tip, throws her hand over her shoulder and starts walking forcing him to keep pace with her.
"I am here," she says marching them out of the office, "to ensure my husband gets a solid six hours of sleep before he attends the prestigious Ballet de l'Opéra national de Paris and watches the breathtaking Amélie Lacroix debut as the leading role in Lac des Cygnes."
The other employees wisely elect not to notice Gérard shuffling along behind her.
"I still have time," he protests. "Your rehearsal is tomorrow afternoon. I set an alarm and everything," he says patting at his pockets searching for his phone.
They enter the decontamination pod. Amélie drops the tie and turns around look her husband in the eye. There is barely an inch between them. She can see the stress adding lines between his brows and in the corners of his lips. He can see her fatigue in the discoloration under her eyes and the acne not hidden by makeup. Red lights flash and metal bars sweep around the couple.
"Gérard," Amélie says flatly, "It's Tuesday."
The pod door opens with a happy ping. Gérard blinks while his mouth hangs open in an unspoken "oh." Amélie turns around and struts over to the lockers. After a pause, Gérard follows.
"You have been working for almost sixty hours straight without replying to a single message, email, or voicecall, I or anyone else has sent you," Amélie says entering in his code.
The door springs open. Gérard pulls at his face and mutters a few choice curses under his breath. Amélie collects his wallet, phone, and her purse. She closes the locker and starts walking. Gérard falls in step beside her.
"I missed your rehearsal?" he asks.
"You missed the rehearsal," she confirms.
Amélie rummages around in her purse and produces a water bottle. She passes it to Gérard who cracks it open and guzzles it.
They make it through the rest of the base without incident. Gérard directs them to a shorter route than the one she took earlier. They reach the parking lot in record time.
Amélie presses the button on the key fob, and her black Buick Lacrosse flashes its lights and unlocks. They open their doors; the smell of Chinese takeaway drifts out and greets them. Gérard's stomach rumbles in response. Amélie buckles herself in while he slides into the passenger seat.
Gérard put on his seatbelt and lift the takeout off the floorboards. He licks his lips as he unfolds the origami-like paper flaps. Amélie presses the ignition button. The engine roars to life while Gérard digs into the rice.
"Spicy chicken?" he asks with his mouth full, "I like the mixed noodles better."
"Mmm, too bad," Amélie says adjusting the rearview mirror.
Gérard swallows a large mouthful and then sets the Chinese down. He looks at his wife out of the corner of his eye.
"You're angry," he says.
"Brilliant deduction," Amélie drawls.
"Very angry," Gérard mutters to himself. "Should I be considering buying an apology gift in my future?"
"You already have." Amélie avoids eye contact by playing with the radio.
"Oh?"
"Mm-hm. You bought me a new hunting rifle. It should be delivered in about a week."
"Ah."
Gérard lets the statement hang in the air. Amélie looks over the dashboard one last time, checking the fuel levels and the defense system.
"Nothing too costly I hope," Gérard ventures. "I am the one who will be reviewing all of our purchases for tax season, after all."
"It was on sale, a bargain really. You should be quite proud of yourself for finding such a deal."
"That's good, that's good. I'm glad I'm finally picking up some of your skill."
Amélie hums noncommittally and throws her arm behind the passenger seat, turning to look out the back window in preparation to back out.
"My dear," Gérard say seriously taking advantage of Amélie facing him. "I am so sorry I missed your rehearsal. I promised I wouldn't let my work interfere with our personal lives any more than necessary and I apologize I haven't held myself to that."
Amélie sighs and deflates a little.
"I know your work is important," she says, "It's just you promised, and it's going to be my début, and I just really, really wanted my husband there supporting me."
"I know, I'm sorry."
"I'm still angry and tired," Amélie warns. "Mostly tired."
"I understand."
Amélie eases up on the brake and the Lacrosse rolls backward.
"Amélie."
"Yes?"
She switches her focus from the back window to the man of her. Gérard looks back at her. The shadows of the night hide his wrinkles and blend way his edges making him look like a Vermeer; older, softer. His expression is honest and open. She can see the barest bit of her reflection in his eyes.
"I love you," Gérard says, his voice, gentle a hint of a smile on his lips.
Amélie feels the tight giddiness grab her chest the way it always does after he says it. Warmth rushes her cheeks and ears, a blush blooms across her face.
Still, after all this time.
Because he means it. He means it not in the way an infatuated school child says it but in the way that someone who understands that love is hard and love takes work and loves changes, grows. He means it in a way that none of her other suitors have.
Amélie presses her lips together and looks away. Gérard grins and returns to eating with a sort of self-satisfied swagger. She finishes backing out the Buick. Amélie sighs and stops fight the smile growing on her face.
"I love you too, idioté."
And she means it.
Thanks for reading!
Please let me know if you see any spelling, grammar, translation or other errors.
Edited: Nov 27 2018
Athena: Your trash husband is spiraling into insanity again. Come get him.
Amélie: He's my sexy weasel husband and I'm on my way.
/This was inspired by the thought what if Gérard didn't work in the field. There are plenty of office jobs in the military.
All of Widowmaker's attitude had to come from somewhere.
FYI Amélie and Gérard speak in French when they talk but I'm just not translating all that.
I'm not aboard the Jerkass!Gérard train but perfect relationships are boring and unrealistic./