For Barrhorn: Happy Birthday!
"You know," Fareeha began, eyes jammed tightly shut as they whizzed around another cliff-edge corner, "it shouldn't surprise me that someone who drives like you do would impulse-buy an entire house."
She heard Angela chuckle. "It wasn't an impulse-buy, I did sleep on it," she said, probably knowing how she sounded because there was a smile in her voice. "And I don't recall you ever mentioning you were afraid of heights all those times we were up in the air together."
"That's because I'm not afraid of heights, I'm afraid of taking hairpin turns on the side of mountains at 40," Fareeha informed her and then paused, considering Angela's comment. "But suddenly it makes so much sense why you were never afraid to tag along with me in the air: because every time you turn, you nearly throw us into it."
Angela was still chuckling, as if she wasn't taking another knife-edge corner at twice the recommended speed. "I learnt to drive on these roads, Fareeha, we're perfectly safe."
She was probably right, Fareeha tried to reassure herself; after all, Angela's risks were always highly calculated—whether that was at driving, in medicine, or purchasing whole properties in foreign countries without even inspecting them first. Well, countries foreign to Fareeha, anyway. "What if you don't like the house, after all?"
Angela made a noise. "I very much doubt that will be the case, all the houses in this town are lovely," she said. "It's not as if we'll be spending that much time in it, anyway. We're both deployed too often. I'm thinking of it more as a holiday house." Then, to Fareeha's horror, Angela gave her a sideways glance, eyes momentarily off the winding road. "I'm more worried that you won't like it."
Fareeha gulped. "If I live long enough to see it, I'm sure I will."
Angela rolled her eyes, laughed good-naturedly, and continued driving upwards until they passed the 'Blatten-Bei-Naters' sign.
The township itself seemed to spring out of nowhere; a moment ago they'd been alone on tiny roads and now they were surrounded by beautiful traditional Swiss houses, older folks tottering along the side of the road with canvas grocery bags, and a few tourists heading up to the ski slopes far above them. There was even an unexpected set of traffic lights.
When Angela turned at them against the orders of their Sat Nav, it chastised them in German, and Angela leant smartly over and switched it off. "Pfft. I think I know this streets better than you do!" she told it, and continued along the side road, heading away from the house they'd purchased, humming to herself.
Fareeha half-watched her, and half-admired the rolling hills and quaint little houses around them, wondering what it would be like to grow up in a town like this. It wasn't hot, dry or sandy like Fareeha's childhood had been—it was brightly coloured, cool and green. The township also seemed slower than Egypt—so relaxed. Everyone was taking their time. Fareeha reflected it would probably be a lovely place to spend the odd month or two together between their respective deployments.
Angela stopped humming as they turned up a smaller road and slowed to a pull up in front of a quaint little two-story house. Aside from being traditionally Swiss, there was nothing remarkable about it compared to the other houses; it had the same flowering geranium pots flowering at every window, the same little balcony and the same steep roof with dark wooden frames. From what Fareeha could remember of the pictures, it wasn't the house Angela had bought.
Fareeha watched her for a moment. "This isn't the house, is it? I thought it had a bigger yard that this."
Angela's eyes were veiled. "I was born in this house."
Oh. Fareeha's lips parted, and she looked back at it for a moment; there was an old, rusted swing set in the backyard, a climbing tree in the front yard, and an antique rocking chair on the porch. The property backed onto a steep hill; sheep grazed there, bells clanging at their necks. It looked like a postcard. "It must have been a nice place to grow up."
A ghost of a smile touched Angela's lips. "It was. But then after I started school, the teachers told my parents I needed to go to a special school in Zurich for gifted children. We moved there, and my parents sold this house to pay for an apartment there. I'd never cried so much in my life."
Fareeha didn't speak; it was clear Angela had more to say.
"Then—" She swallowed, struggling with the rest. "You know, we never would have been in Zurich when my parents—if I hadn't—" She took a breath.
Fareeha reached out and put her hand over Angela's on the steering wheel. "It's not your fault."
Angela exhaled at length to steady herself, and then nodded slowly. "I know…" she said. "Intellectually, I know that. But I've always imagined what would have happened if I'd stayed here instead."
"Do you wish you hadn't left?"
Angela considered that, looking back at the house. Her eyes were glazed; she was deep in thought. "That's such a hard question," she admitted. "Yes. No. No, I'm glad I could study in Zurich develop nano biotechnology. In some ways, I'm even glad I was in Overwatch, despite how it all ended." She squeezed Fareeha's hand, momentarily giving her a warm smile. "Many good things have happened to me since Zurich. But I always wondered what would have happened if I'd stayed, anyway."
Fareeha nodded, and they spent a moment sitting together in quiet contemplation, gazing at Angela's childhood home.
It was only when another resident wandered up the street that Fareeha realised how odd it must seem, two adult women staring silently at a house. "Should we get out and have a closer look?"
Angela shook her head, and sat back upright in the driver's seat. "No…" she said. "No. I just wanted to see it again, and I've seen it." She made a visible attempt to pep herself back up. "Right! Well, let's go have a look at the house I bought, shall we?"
Fareeha gave her a tight smile and squeezed her hand one last time before putting it back in her own lap. Angela reversed out of the little street (at three times a safe speed to do so), and retraced their route back to the traffic lights.
As they turned out onto the main road again, Angela pointed at a café. "That used to be the Supermarket, before the Migros opened up," she said, and then down one of the side-streets at a large house. "That lady kept sheep, and her husband always left the gate open. Every morning traffic would need to dodge sheep to get down to Brig." She pointed out more landmarks, each with an interesting anecdote, detailing little snippets of life in this township as they drove uphill. That house, on the corner, that was Angela's best friend's house. The one up the road? Angela's cousin's house—their family had kept Kosher, too, so it had been an interesting problem when her cousin had fallen for the Evangelical pastor's daughter.
It was a unique insight into Angela's life, seeing the town and hearing her stories. Angela painted a beautiful picture of growing up in the Swiss mountains in a town so tight-knit that everyone knew everyone.
Fareeha watched her, thoughtful. Perhaps buying a house in her childhood town hadn't been such an impulse, after all.
Before long, Angela pulled alongside a house Fareeha recognised from the pictures. It had the same steep roof, black wood and timber framing of the other houses. Some of the geraniums in the windowsill pots had died though; only a couple were flowering. There was moss on the roof and one of the gutters sagged from disrepair. It looked like an old, tired house with a lot of history. 'Estate auction', Fareeha remembered reading. "Did you know the lady who lived here?" she wondered aloud.
"My first teacher," Angela said without missing a beat—and without letting emotion creep into her voice as she parked the car and got promptly out. Fareeha followed her.
The house was built on a slope and the grass had been freshly cut—no doubt by a real estate agent. It was so green—a richer colour than Fareeha could remember seeing anywhere else in the world. There were still a few wildflowers that hadn't been cut by the mower poking out around the house—so colourful, all of them.
Angela gave the outside of the house a cursory look, commenting, "Well, it could do with a little touch-up, I think," before proceeding up the front stairs to the door and unlocking it. To Fareeha's eyes, the old lock looked very unsecure—it was from last century, one of the old key-driven deadlocks, highly insecure. Then again, this didn't seem to be the sort of place where there was a lot of crime, so perhaps the location was safe, anyway.
Inside, there was a musty, unlived-in smell. There was no furniture left, but the old rugs were still covering the hardwood floors, worn and thin. Someone had given the house a once-over to remove the cobwebs and dust, as Fareeha could smell disinfectant.
Angela wasn't looking at her. "I like this big living room!" she said cheerfully, moving through it a little too fast to really appreciate it, glancing up at the rafters and stopping in front of the pot-belly stove. "This will be lovely in winter!"
She passed Fareeha quickly, too, bustling into the kitchen. "And it would be nice cooking in a real kitchen for once. Aren't the cupboards nice? I'm so glad they're original. It makes such a difference."
Fareeha looked up at the cupboards, and then back at Angela. "Me too," she said with a cheeky smile. "A house without original cupboards? Heresy."
She expected Angela to roll her eyes, or give her a look, or something… but Angela didn't. In fact, Fareeha wasn't 100% certain Angela had even heard her.
Before she could address that though, Angela was already climbing the stairs to the bedrooms. There was three of them—a master and two smaller ones. All of them had sloped ceilings, and Fareeha had to bend to stand close to the window. She pretended to knock her head on one of the rafters. "Ouch," she said, rubbing the fictional bruise. "Think I should see a doctor?"
She was smiling at Angela—but Angela once again wasn't looking at her, and she didn't acknowledge Fareeha's terrible joke, either. "Well, they're quite small rooms," she said, instead. "But I suppose you don't need much space to sleep in, do you?" It was a rhetorical question. "And I suppose we'd only been here a couple of months out of the year…"
The two smaller bedrooms were side by side, the same size, and opposite a little bathroom. Angela had started to talk about perhaps making one into a study for herself, or a games room for Fareeha, but as they opened the doors and saw the pastel paints—the words died on her lips. Two children had lived there, a boy and girl by the looks of it. There were still a few stickers (half removed) from door frames, and signs these rooms had been well-lived in and well-loved. The view from the windows down over the town was like something out of a fairy-tale. Someone had painted a unicorn on the window.
Angela stopped in the centre of one of them. She didn't say anything though, and she was facing away from Fareeha. "Hmm!" was all she managed, and then turn on the balls of her feet and walked so briskly back past Fareeha that her hair lifted from her shoulders a little from the breeze. She was back downstairs again and bustling about in the storage cupboards out the back before Fareeha could follow her.
Fareeha returned down the stairs and stood a little uselessly in the centre of the living room, listening to the clunks and banging of whatever Angela was doing out the back. She put her hands in the pockets of her jeans uncomfortably. Angela was clearly defaulting to her cheerful, peppy exterior to mask whatever she was actually feeling—but Fareeha couldn't imagine what that would be. Grief? Guilt? Angela never hid those things from her. Angela didn't hide much from her, these days. Perhaps she just needed some time to gather her thoughts and then she'd bring it up with Fareeha herself? It must be strange being back in her hometown after so long away from it, after all.
While she was puzzling over whether to ask Angela directly if she was alright, there was a knock on the door. She stared at it, surprised.
"Would you mind getting that?" Angela called out of the back room. Her voice was muffled by something. "It might be the real estate agent with the other set of keys!" Fareeha frowned a little, but answered the door anyway.
When she opened it, it didn't appear to be a real estate agent at all—at least unless real estate agents in Blatten-bei-Naters wore casual clothes and brought food. The lady at the door was probably late thirties—a new mother, by the look of her slightly saggy belly—bright-faced, smiling, and carrying a basket full of what was clearly home-based food.
She greeted Fareeha in German, and when Fareeha blinked at her, she switched to English with no trouble at all. "Welcome!" she said, and extended her hand over the basket for Fareeha to shake. It didn't feel like a very practiced movement. "That's the right thing to do isn't it?" She laughed. "When I heard someone foreign had bought the house it was very exciting! We don't have many people move here anymore. Most people just spent the holidays here!"
Fareeha didn't have the heart to tell her that was probably exactly what Angela and Fareeha were going to do.
"I'm Marie," she said, and then pointed over her shoulder. "I live just down the road with my husband and new baby son! Apologies if I look like I haven't slept. He's only five weeks old." That explained the belly, Fareeha figured. "Anyway, I know your furniture hasn't arrived yet, so I thought I'd bring something for you to eat. Challah, rosti, some cookies and wine—all local! Sugar, salt and wine. Welcome to Blatter-bei-Naters!" There was something very Angela about her, Fareeha realised. The cheerfulness and generosity. Even the way she spoke.
"That's very kind of you," Fareeha said as she accepted the basket, meaning it. "I'm Fareeha, and my partner's name is—"
"Marie?"
The voice came from behind them. Fareeha turned, and Angela was standing in the doorway, sleeves rolled up her elbows like she'd been in the middle of something. Her jaw hung open in surprise.
When Fareeha glanced back at Marie, she watched the woman's brow knit in confusion a moment, before her eyes lit up. "Angela?" she said, with the hard 'g', and then gushed something in German.
Fareeha had to stand aside so that Marie could rush past her, kiss Angela's cheeks and envelope her in a big warm hug. Over Marie's shoulder, Angela still looked shell-shocked, but her expression warmed the moment Marie wrapped her arms around her, and she replied to her. Fareeha's German wasn't good enough to understand.
Marie touched her face and then stepped away from her, agreeing with whatever Angela had said and touching her stomach. They must have been talking about the baby.
Even though Angela had started to smile, she still looked a little stunned. When her eyes fell on Fareeha, she shook herself. "Sorry," she said in English. "Fareeha, that's so rude of us! This is Marie, she's my… 'cousin-in-law'? Is that a word? She's married to my cousin."
Marie shoved her gently. "That's how you'd introduce me?" she said, and then twisted to face Fareeha. "We were best friends as children," she informed Fareeha. "Until she went to Zurich to become an international medical superstar!" Angela's eyes glazed over again. Marie didn't notice. "You must tell us all about everything! Will you come over for Shabbat tonight? We're having Lea and Julien and their children as well."
Marie wouldn't accept no for an answer, and so Fareeha and Angela ended up seated at the dining table at a little house closer to the centre of town, stuffing themselves silly by a roaring fire.
Put quite simply, Marie's cooking was excellent. There were some familiar, probably traditional foods there—as well as other foods Fareeha didn't recognise (and wouldn't remember the names of after she was advised of them) and lots, and lots, and lots of wine.
Angela probably shouldn't have had as much as she did—with Fareeha's gentle encouragement it had been a good year since she'd stopped drinking like she used to. Given that it was a special occasion, though, Fareeha worried less about it than she ordinarily would. Besides, it was so lovely to see Angela loosen up and laugh with her extended family. She knew family was a sore point her.
At first, everyone spoke English for Fareeha's benefit—everyone except the younger children. However, as everyone got drunker, their English slipped and they all descended back into their Swiss German accidentally.
Fareeha didn't mind; there was such a warm, familial atmosphere, and everyone's accents were so pleasant. It was a special treat for her to listen to Angela chatting away merrily in her mother tongue. Fareeha sipped slowly at her own wine, watched everyone sharing their food, recounting what had happened since Angela had left, and cooing over Marie's new baby, Oliver. Seeing Angela's interest, Marie offered Oliver to her.
Eagerly, Angela accepted him into her arms.
He still had that wrinkled newborn look—face puckered up, fists clenched. His sandy brown hair poked in tufts from his head; Angela stroked it gently, too drunk to hide her pleasure at how soft it was. She touched his little cheeks, let him curl his tiny little fingers around one of hers while he blinked in confusion at her. "He's beautiful," she commented, gazing at him like the sun shone out of his little body.
It was only when she stroked his cheek and he turned his head towards her breast that she laughed—it was forced, Fareeha thought. "You won't find much in there.".
"I think he's hungry," Marie said—or, at least, Fareeha assumed she said—as she accepted him back from Angela, and pulled down her top. Fareeha looked politely away. Marie noticed, and asked of Angela in English, "Are you planning on starting your family as soon as you move here? Little Oliver here could use a friend. They could grow up together like we did!"
Angela's smile faded, and Fareeha immediately sobered. She should have known the conversation would drift in this direction.
Angela took a moment to answer, and she'd managed to push her lips into a smile and some brightness into her voice as she said, "Oh. I, uh, well I don't think a family is on the cards for Fareeha and I."
Marie pursed her lips. "No? I've always thought you'd make a wonderful mother. You love children."
Angela's eyes glazed over. "Perhaps. But my job is quite dangerous, and I'm not keen on putting my children in the same position I was in as a child."
Marie made an 'oh' shape with her mouth. "Perhaps you could find work down the road in Brig? There's a hospital there. They always need good management."
Angela glanced at Fareeha; they both knew Angela's real place in medicine wasn't in hospital management.
Angela managed a smile at Marie, and then shook her head. "It's just not for me, I'm afraid."
Marie made a face, adjusting Oliver's position at her breast a little. "That's such a pity—I assumed that because you'd bought that big house you'd be filling it up with little people! No matter. I'm sure all the kids will love having a new pair of Aunts."
The topic wandered from there to whether or not Marie planned to school Oliver in Blatter-bei-Naters or if he'd go to a bigger school down in Brig—and then slowly crept back into German. Angela was only superficially part of it, anyway; smiling, nodding, pretending to look engaged—but she'd quietened.
Fareeha knew what that meant. She manufactured a yawn and a stretch. "I think I'm ready to try and sleep off this wonderful dinner!" she announced, smiling at Angela.
Angela smiled in response—but still didn't make eye-contact with her.
After debating at length where they would be sleeping with Marie (Marie was trying to insist they sleep in her spare room, but Angela was very keen on heading back to her new house), Fareeha led a very drunk Angela slowly back uphill.
"I think I ate rather too much," Angela admitted sheepishly, a hand on her stomach. She was staggering a little.
"'Ate'?" Fareeha asked dryly, but she was smiling.
Angela made a face. "Are you upset with me?" Fareeha shook her head, and Angela exhaled. "That wine probably wasn't a good idea either," she admitted. "I forgot how much I like how this feels."
Fareeha put an arm around her to steady her as they matched each other's steps. She considered her next words a silence stretched between them.
Fareeha decided to address it. "Angela, you've been a little…" She couldn't find a good way to describe it. "Well, are you alright?"
"I'm just tired and drunk, I think," was the immediate answer. It hung in the air awkwardly for a moment, while Fareeha debated pointing out that she knew Angela too well to believe that was it. They'd arrived back at the house before she'd made a decision about whether or not to push the point.
They'd packed bedrolls in the car—"Perhaps we're a little too old for camping," Angela had said, "but wouldn't it be fun to sleep in the house tonight?"—and they brought them inside and lay them out on the living room floor. Angela even managed to get a fire going in the pot-belly stove, and then, before they lay down to sleep, the plan was to sit by it and enjoy the warmth while the alcohol wore off and dinner digested.
Angela wasn't doing that, though. She'd opened a few bright application windows in the air for whatever reason, and then kept getting up to check elements of the house—the upstairs windows, the downstairs kitchen, and the bathroom, muttering far too cheerfully to herself about it. There was a nervous energy about her, and when Fareeha checked the time and it read 01:13, she decided to stop waiting for Angela to finally come to bed, and went to find her.
Angela was on hands and knees, elbow-deep in the oven.
Fareeha stopped her, pulling her gently to stand. "Angela, what are you doing?"
"Measuring the oven," Angela said, as if it were perfectly natural and obvious.
Fareeha resisted the urge to point out that Angela wasn't really much of a cook. "Why don't you come to bed?"
"In a minute," she said dismissively, "there's just a few things I need to do first. I won't be long."
She'd been 'a few things' for an hour. "You can do those things in the morning. Come on."
Angela looked unconvinced. "Really, Fareeha, I just need to—" She was looking towards the oven.
"No, Angela, you really don't need to do that right now, it's nothing that can't wait until after we've—"
She tried to pull away. "But I'd like to just—"
"Angela, you really—"
There was almost panic audible as she said, "Fareeha, will you let go of me?"
Shocked by her tone of voice, Fareeha did, immediately.
Angela looked just as surprised as Fareeha did.
For a moment, they just gaped at each other, silent.
Then, the veil descended back over Angela's eyes. She cast them downward, looking at the space between their feet, shoulders slumped. At least that false cheerfulness has disappeared from her voice when she looked back up into Fareeha's eyes and asked quietly, "Fareeha, what am I doing?"
This was the conversation Fareeha had been looking for. She stepped forwards and wrapped her arms around Angela, enveloping in her a strong hug. "Come back to bed and talk about it?"
Angela sighed at length and nodded, and as Fareeha released her, she let herself be led back to their bedrolls by the fire. Fareeha had closed all the application windows and fixed Angela's and made it all cosy and ready for her to crawl into, and she did so, smiling in appreciation.
Side by side, they lay quietly facing each other. Fareeha's hand crept inside Angela's bedroll and found hers, lacing their fingers together. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Angela closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head. It was a couple of minutes before she spoke. "It's so ridiculous when you think about it. I just don't know why I'd buy house here."
Fareeha didn't understand exactly. "You mean, as opposed to somewhere else we go more often when we're off duty?"
She shook her head. "No. I have family here. I grew up here. The location makes sense, it's just—a whole house? With three bedrooms?"
Oh. Fareeha let her talk.
"It's so ridiculous," she continued. "I know my research is important. They're practically throwing funding and resources at me right now—medical researchers dream of that, it would be a terrible time for me to take extended leave. And it's not as if I can do that research in the comfort of my own home—people don't often haemorrhage to death in quaint little Swiss towns. It needs to be out in the line of fire, or in dangerous locations."
"Perhaps you can train someone else to collect data for you?" Fareeha suggested.
Angela squeezed her hand anyone in appreciation, but shook her head. "There isn't an alternative, and I don't really want to stop my research. I love it, I enjoy it, and it's so, so important…"
There was an implicit 'and yet…' in her voice as she trailed off. Fareeha spoke it aloud. "And yet you're impulse-buying family houses."
Angela pressed her lips together. "And yet I'm impulse-buying family houses," she repeated. She spent a few moments lost in thought; Fareeha saw her throat bob as she swallowed before she spoke again. "I don't know what I was thinking," she admitted. There was that hanging sentence again, that unfinished thought.
They both knew what it meant.
Fareeha lifted their intertwined hands and kissed the back of hers. "Well, I know what you were thinking."
Angela's jaw tightened, and she closed her eyes for a moment, taking a few steadying breaths before she opened them again. "Yeah." She turned her head towards Fareeha again. "Ridiculous, isn't it?"
Fareeha shook her head and kissed the back of her hands again. "Not at all."
Angela sighed. "Fareeha," she said in a mock-scolding voice. "You're not supposed to humour me on this one."
"I'm not," Fareeha told her, and meant it. "Mother had me when she was still in the army, remember?"
"But I bet she wasn't in the line of fire every day."
"She was. She took three months off after she had me, and then she went right back on duty. She was a captain by then, too."
Angela took a moment to process that, her thumb idly stroking the back of Fareeha's hand. "Didn't you worry?"
Fareeha laughed once. "About Mum? A little, perhaps, but it was normal for me."
Angela was paying close attention to her. "What about after we all thought she'd been killed by the Talon sniper?"
Fareeha grimaced, remembering. It had been a very long month before the letter her mother had written arrived. "I missed her, of course. But like I said in her eulogy: she'd dedicated her life to doing what she loved, and I admired her so much for it. Even if it killed her in the end."
That seemed to have struck a chord with Angela, and she frowned for a few seconds, brow knit.
Fareeha watched her eyes tracking through the air, deep in thought. There had been so much more Fareeha had said in front of that huge audience of people who'd loved, respected and admired her mother. So much more. She remembered standing up on stage in front of all those people who'd come to pay their respects, almost unable to stop her own tears. "My mother was—is—amazing. She loves what she does. And even if she'd actually been dead, I would have understood. She'd changed the world doing what she loved, and I'd always have known that and been inspired by it."
Angela didn't say anything, but she was listening to Fareeha.
She smiled at Angela, squeezing her hand. "Does that sound familiar? Passionate about what she does. Top of her field. Loved and respected by everyone who works with her?"
Angela managed to scoff and roll her eyes, but she looked absolutely charmed. "Stop it," she said, but shuffled closer, gently pushing Fareeha onto her back so she could fit under her arm. She spent a few moments cuddling closer and making herself comfortable before Fareeha could feel her exhale at length and relax against her.
They'd both closed their eyes and Fareeha's thoughts were drifting when she heard Angela mumble. "Do you really think we could make it work?"
It wasn't even a question for Fareeha. "Yes. You're amazing, Angela. You could do anything you wanted to do."
Angela made a 'pfft' noise, but Fareeha could feel her begin to smile broadly against her shoulder, no doubt imagining what that would be like. Fareeha hugged her tightly, kissing the crown of her head and smiling, too.
Were they really going to do this? Fareeha's smile threatened to crack her face when she remembered Angela holding Oliver, and imagined how beautiful she'd be with her own baby, their baby. How incredible it would be to bring new life into this world together.
With big smiles on their faces and in the warmth of a slowly burning fire, they both drifted off to sleep, dreaming of filling their new house with their own beautiful family.