It was a quiet, rainy sort of evening at the Watchpoint. It could have been because of the late hour, or because of the fact that many of Overwatch's members had just returned from an arduous battle in Dorado, but one could hear even a pin dropping walking through the halls. Everyone had retired to bed early after dinner, leaving the common areas the perfect place for thinking.
Or making upgrades to crusader armor.
Brigette's finger traced a few lines of a blueprint that rested on a desk, leaning over to scribble the line in darker for her older companion.
"This one, you old geezer!" she whispered irritably, trying not to wake anyone up but still trying to get her point across. "If we slightly adjusted the angle of the shoulder blades by three degrees, you would achieve that much less wind resistance during your charge! No wonder you can't get there quickly enough to pin those guys – they're miles away before you can even think about getting there!"
Reinhardt Wilhelm mulled over the paper carefully, lifting his drafting pencil to scratch idly at his fluffy white beard while adjusting the reading glasses sitting on his nose. He let out a long, low hum of thought before tapping the pencil lightly against the paper.
"But then…" he began, tilting his head slightly to the side while picking up a nearby sextant to perform a few measurements. He slowly jotted them down, careful not to snap the pencil in two – these things were so small, but pretty expensive.
"Then what?" Brigitte replied, curious. She leaned against the desk.
Reinhardt looked up at her, removing his glasses and placing them in front of him.
"Well, then I won't appear nearly as menacing."
The young woman couldn't contain the long, agonizing groan that escaped from her.
"You're impossible!" she exclaimed, reaching her hands up to dramatically grab fistfuls of auburn hair.
Reinhardt haughtily chuckled at her reaction before he looked over at his watch, noticing just how late it had gotten. 1 AM already? He supposed that time always flew when he and Brigette were hard at work.
With a hefty sigh, Brigette returned to pat Reinhardt hard on the back.
"You know, old man, you were always good at giving me a hard time." Her tone was much more jovial this time as she leaned on his shoulder while giving him a playful flick of the ear. Reinhardt smiled at the girl before tapping his watch face.
"It is late, you know." He remarked. "1 AM. This can wait until tomorrow, if you would like."
Brigette shook her head, swishing her hair around her freckled face with a soft tsk-tsk. "What, you think that I'm going to quit just because we can't agree?" she said, placing a hand on her hip. "The frustrations you've given me over the years are more than enough to keep me up for a lifetime."
An unfamiliar voice spoke.
"That makes two of us."
Brigette and Reinhardt leaned over to and realized that they had now been joined by newly-recalled Overwatch operative Ana Amari in the doorway. Both colored slightly at her appearance, one more apparently than the other as she knew that her companion and Ana had some…unresolved issues in the past. Ana had recently resurfaced alive, when everyone for years believed her to be dead. Across the board there had been emotional and heartfelt reunions with her daughter, Angela, Torbjorn, and the others, but things didn't seem right between Reinhardt and Ana. Like there was something that needed to be taken care of, but neither of them was brave enough to do it.
"Oh! Ana, we didn't…see you there." Brigette said, forcing herself to relax while the man beside her still struggled to find something to say. "I hope we didn't wake you – I know it's late."
"Oh, no, dear. You didn't." Ana reassured her by dismissively waving her hand, gliding over to the coffee machine across the room and holding the button until the machine started up with a whirr. "I've seen enough in this life to be well past sleeping at night."
The awkward silence between the three of them was instantly tangible. Reinhardt still remained dumbfounded in his seat, his vision shifting between Brigette and their new company. Mein Gott, what was he supposed to say to her? Well, he thought, he had many things to say – thousands of things. But nothing that wouldn't turn to total and complete mush in his mouth the second he tried to say it. He thanked the Gods that Brigette was there beside him, else he would surely –
"Well, I'll tell you what. All this planning has gotten me beat." Brigette stretched her arms up high over her head before taking a moment to rub her face and rid herself of secondhand embarrassment. "I think I'm going to head off to bed."
"Brigette!" Reinhardt hissed, exasperatedly grabbing at the girl's shirt and tugging at it. The young woman locked eyes with the crusader and leaned over onto the desk, the grin on her face growing more wildly mischievous as every second passed.
Don't go, his expression pleaded her, and she couldn't help but snicker under her breath.
"Who is the squire to intrude on a private council between a knight and his queen?" she whispered, gathering the blueprints with one swift click from the clips on each side. Reinhardt ground his teeth.
Brigette bid them both a good night and swiftly exited the room, the sound of her footsteps hastily ascending the stairs being the last thing heard before the common room was in complete and deafening silence.
Reinhardt could feel his heartbeat quicken drastically as time went on. His eyes locked on Ana's lithe form, who was now standing idly by the coffee machine while it poured steaming water into a teacup underneath. Just seeing her again clouded his mind - even after all these years, she was still…breathtaking to behold. Her trademark blue headscarf was nowhere to be found, her battle attire stripped down to a black turtleneck and pants. Her hair, normally tied back into a neat braid, now cascaded freely down her back, silver strands catching and glinting in the light of the nearby lamp. One amber eye fixated on the steam that rose from the cup as the water slowed to a trickle.
"Reinhardt."
Her voice came sharp enough for him to instinctively stand, ripping him abruptly from what could only be described as ogling. Said amber eye was now focused on him, awaiting his notice.
"Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?"
His shoulders slouched as the words reached his ears. A simple enough question, to be sure.
"I…would love one." He breathed, half-stumbling toward the counter.
How was he still so flustered? After all this time, how did she still manage to make him feel like he was gasping for air? She truly was an alchemist.
He stopped next to her at the counter, resting his hands against its marble rim. He tapped his fingers against the countertop, trying to think of something, anything to say.
"So, you couldn't sleep?" his tone was broken, crackling, almost as if he were afraid to disturb the silence.
"Not once. Not in many, many years." Her reply was immediate. It startled him.
"And why is that?"
"When demons are chasing you, it's hard to find a moment to rest."
He let out a sigh then. This was going nowhere.
The coffee machine had finished filling the second teacup, and carefully Ana's lithe fingers wrapped around the handle, lifting it and placing it on a saucer in front of her. She reached for a small satchel she'd brought with her, sliding it open and pulling out a tea bag which she carefully dropped into her teacup. She ran her fingers around its gold rim methodically, slowly watching a yellow tint seep from the pouch.
"And what for you?" her tone was pensive. He tensed, unsure.
"Kamillentee?"
"Ah," The woman mused, airily, turning to the small satchel and rooting a finger around. Her eye lit up suddenly, pulling out a similar bag that was tinged with a green corner.
"Here we are, some chamomile." A ghost of a smile perched itself upon her lips, and she dropped the bag into Reinhardt's hand. "I apologize if it tastes bitter – it is my last, and easier to store alongside my other flavors."
Reinhardt chuckled under his breath, easing the small bag into his cup.
Before too long, words found him.
"And you?" he asked.
"And I?" her voice didn't waver.
"What are you drinking?"
She took a moment, extending her fingers to lift the saucer of her cup. He could see a painful look cross her features for the shortest of moments – eyebrows furrowed, lips hardened into a thin, straight line. But then it was gone.
"Taiwanese oolong," she replied, turning toward him with a sad smile. "It's bitter, but it helps me relax."
He grunted awkwardly in recognition. Idly, his eyes fell to the way her left hand played around the teacup's handle. Two fingers continually tightened and then loosened their grasp around it, her thumb twiddling with a mended crack the cup had sustained. In fact, it looked like the cup was covered in mended cracks; the pink floral pattern that dotted the sides were still chipped or fractured, but expertly returned to their former glory when pieced back together.
He wondered why that cup felt so…familiar to him as he lifted his eyes to watch Ana brush a lock of hair behind her ear. Looking at it made emotions swirl within the pit of his stomach.
Wait.
Mein Gott, it couldn't be.
"Ana, that isn't -"
Her laugh was etched into his thoughts after he thought he'd never hear it again. It was so nice to know that he'd remembered it exactly.
"I was wondering when you'd notice," she replied after looking down at the yellowish liquid that had begun to darken within the cup. "It's a treasured gift that has continued to serve me well all this time."
His whole body felt charged in that moment, as if he could power his rocket hammer with his spirits alone.
"What happened to it? What happened to…you?" he questioned, moving ever so slightly closer to her. Ana's face turned, pursing her lips a bit before pulling in a slow breath.
"Reinhardt…" she warned, reluctantly.
"Forgive me," he said matter-of-factly, his eyes hardened with determination. "I just…seeing you these past few days has been like seeing a ghost."
He studied the scowl that crossed her face, but she quickly retracted the expression in favor of something a bit more forgiving.
"No," she agreed with a sharp nod and a strange expression he couldn't pinpoint. "You deserve to know. After the incident with Talon, I needed time to reflect on everything I'd done." She looked over at the last few drops of water that fell from the coffee machine. "It was easier if no one knew. That meant everyone – even Fareeha. No one would come looking for me when they thought I was gone."
Ana's face grew wistful for a moment, her gaze casting a look down at her hands holding the cup. A corner of her mouth turned up, almost in a smile, but not really.
"And as for this old thing…I was on a recon mission." She began, trying to perceive the events of the past from within her tea. "It was a long time ago. I was still struggling with depth perception then." She laughed to herself.
Even still, after all the pain she'd gone through, Ana was still in there, laughing in the face of danger. Laughing at herself. It had been a joke within the Overwatch ranks that the woman would never die, because she had the ability to come back from anything.
Reinhardt felt his heart twinge with something like irony in mourning her death. All in all, he should have known better.
"Well, as you can imagine, I was caught out of position. He almost got me, too, but I was able to hit him with a sleep dart and get away with only minor injuries. Only later, after I was alone and able to patch myself up did I realize that one of the bullets had gone right through my bag, shattering my cup."
It was clear that Ana had suffered a great deal from the weight of the memory on her shoulders. Reinhardt considered grasping at her hands, else he thought she may drop and shatter the cup a second time.
The woman fell quiet before lifting her hands and placing her tea back on the countertop. Her arms snaked their way around her body protectively and her eye darted about the room, everywhere except looking at him.
"I was devastated," she began to elaborate. "That cup was the last thing connecting me to any happy memory I'd had. I'd lost Overwatch, Fareeha, you…what do you fight for when everything you have is so broken?"
Her voice started to crack and Reinhardt thought that if he hadn't known better, he'd have thought she might start to cry. She held tight to herself, closing her eye and drawing in a deep, dark breath before pushing out a long and painful exhale. Her eyelid opened once more, staring a hole into the floor.
"And then came the recall, from Winston. By that time my wounds from the attack had healed. I kept every piece of the teacup with me, carrying it around as a memento of what I'd lost and what I could never get back. I was dead to all of you, my one true purpose in life a failure."
His face contorted into a grimace at that thought.
"Ana, that is not…true, we -"
She placed a finger to his lips, hushing him. She was good at that.
"But one day, while on a mission in Hanamura, I saw a pot that had been shattered in all different places, just like my cup. But, instead of mourning the loss of the pot, its owner had taken the pieces and put them back together with gold in between the cracks.
The broken pot did not mean that the pot could no longer serve its purpose. It meant that it had gone through experiences that had broken it and brought it back stronger than before. And for me, it should be the same. I am old now, and things happened in my life that have broken me. But it does not mean that I cannot still serve my purpose, protecting those that I hold dear."
Her body seemed to relax as she stood for a moment, reflecting on everything she had told him. He could see a faint smile play across her features as she once more reached to move a finger around the gold rim of the teacup.
"And so it is," she sighed after a long pause. "I put the cup back together again. I put myself back together again, and decided that I would answer the recall to Overwatch. Even if Fareeha was furious with me for leaving her and would never see me again, I would go on protecting the world she lives in. The world we all live in. Because it…" She shrugged her shoulders. "…it is my purpose."
Reinhardt had never wanted to take this woman into his arms more. He had thought her dead, gone forever, and still he had not felt his love grow stronger than that of this moment. His hands clenched and relaxed and his muscles tensed and his insides burned for something, to do something… and he felt stupid for not knowing what.
"And as for you -" she added, her tittering laugh akin to a hummingbird fluttering its wings, "Well, I figured that if you'd forgotten about me and -"
"Ana," The scolding growl that interrupted her sounded far more menacing then the hurt eyebrows knitting themselves on his forehead. "And here I thought you to be sensible."
She said nothing, just looked up at him with a raised eyebrow, one gleaming ocher eye staring deep into his blue one. He managed a small chuckle, though it came out a bit more solemn than he would have liked.
The crusader, longing to be near her, closed a smidgeon of the gap between them, his hand reaching out to brush his thumb against the Horus tattoo on her cheek. "You must be speaking nonsense if you were to think that I would forget you for even a second."
After all the years of holding it in, the words coming from him felt like a weight being lifted from his chest. Never had he dreamt that he would be able to tell her in person a fraction of the things he felt for her. Sure, the two of them were known to flirt, but after losing her, saying those things in a joking manner felt wrong. Especially because he had suffered so much with the regret of not telling her about just how much she meant to him. Or about how after her death, he refused to sleep for weeks. Or how when he finally did sleep, he dreamed of himself waking in the middle of the night to find her basking in the moonlight. Or how much it hurt waking up again, alone. About how for years after her passing, he'd taken up alcohol, his only solace in the twisted realm that was his world without her near.
His arm fell again when Ana took in a sharp breath of air as if to say something else, but decided against it as she turned to pick up a nearby spoon. She fished out her tea bag and placed it on the saucer underneath, then raised the cup to her lips, almost as if eager to escape into the liquid. Then, abruptly, she hesitated.
One blue eye stared unwavering as she lowered the cup from her lips again, her expression gleaning nothing he could determine.
"I have wasted so many years, Reinhardt." She mused, placing her tea back on the saucer. "I am old now."
"So am I." He replied, without missing a beat. He could see now what she was thinking. "But, it is as you say. Despite everything, our purpose remains."
She glanced sidelong at him, the corner of her eye catching his form.
"I am unsure of what you are getting at."
A large, callused hand enveloped hers, and carefully he genuflected to press a fleeting kiss to her knuckles.
"You know how…cowardly I can be in matters of the heart." He explained as she took a few steps near him. "If that cup you've kept serves as any memory."
Her soft skin tasted good, he thought, immediately chiding himself afterwards and throwing the thought to the back of his mind for him to reflect upon later.
"You might need to jog my memory of how it ended." Her voice was teasing, and despite how he flushed at the comment – because he, in intricate detail, could remember how it ended – was glad to have Ana Amari in good graces again, if only for the moment.
Slender arms found their way around his neck and she pressed her forehead to his, the eye of the Horus relying on its loyal protector while it rested its watchful eye.
"Mein maus…" he whispered, his voice deep and rough. Her scent wafted through him, his senses filling with the smell of scented oils and tea leaves that lingered on her skin. She lifted her head to rest in his hair while he made himself comfortable under her neck, letting go of a contented sigh.
"Asad, my knight," his body rumbled with contentment upon hearing her dark, sultry voice. Thin fingers played through his white locks as his thumbs traced rubbing patterns into her back. "I have missed you so."
"And I you."
There was a small pause, her fingers continuing their exploration.
"I…am sorry for not coming sooner. For not telling you I was alive. I must have caused you great pain, Reinhardt."
"Ah," he responded, lifting her into his arms and rounding the counter to seat her at a nearby couch before sitting himself. "Don't worry yourself. It was difficult without you, but nothing makes me happier than having you here again."
She laughed under her breath, keeping eye contact with the man beside her.
"But please, promise me one thing – that if you ever find yourself broken again, let me help you. Let me be the gold that keeps you together."
Her expression looked slightly surprised at the comment before it softened entirely, taking in what he'd said. Carefully, her small form crawled delicately into Reinhardt's lap to place lingering kisses along his furry jawline.
"I'll do my best to remember that." He could feel her whisper into his neck.
For a long while after that, he made sure to cradle her as they talked, careful that she wouldn't disappear if he were to wake up from another dream. They chatted and joked and flirted, as they always had – the tea left cold and forgotten on the countertop.
Brigette was always one of the first people to wake in the morning, regardless of what time she went to sleep. It was a credit to her work ethic, she surmised – she was always ready and willing to return to her life's work. Roused with the thought of brewing some coffee, she rolled out of bed, grabbed a book she had been reading, and tiptoed her way downstairs as not to disturb any of the others.
She turned the corner into the common room to stop abruptly in her tracks.
The couple, Reinhardt and his late-night guest, could not have been comfortable sleeping the way they were. They were tangled up in each other, legs interlocking while Ana used his arm he had wrapped around her as a pillow. Both faces looked entirely serene, though, Reinhardt snoring as softly as she'd ever heard him, with one of Ana's hands precariously placed underneath his shirt. A long, thin blanket covered them both, completing the scene.
At first, Brigette thought to take a picture. Think of all the things she could get away with if she had this kind of leverage in her back pocket! Reinhardt would let her do anything! But then, she thought, taking a step to round the corner out of the common room again, she had better not. She'd not seen her partner so contented in a long time.
She decided instead that coffee would wait, and sat by the foot of the stairs before opening her book. She would see to it that they were not disturbed – after all, the squire should not mettle with the affairs between a knight and his queen.