"Angela!"
The woman's heart skips a beat at the unexpected, if not unwelcome voice drawing her attention away from her notes. And there she is, her child of a soulmate, wearing a sunflower dress and a smile.
"Fareeha? What are you- I didn't know you were coming?" It's only been two weeks, two excruciatingly long weeks, but still. All three of them agreed that that Fareeha would visit on monthly basis, with Angela herself flying to Cairo for holidays alongside Ana.
"I wanted it to be a surprise, so, surprise!" She throws herself at Angela just as the doctor stands up, latching tightly onto her waist. In spite of her confusion, a grin spreads on the blonde's face the very same instant, she can never help it with her soulmate. Especially when she looks up at her like that, still plastered against her. "You like it?"
"I'm always glad to see you." The woman laughs. "I take it that Captain- you mother is here too?"
"Yeah, we just got off the jet. I think she's still talking to Jack." It... never ceases to weird her out to hear the commander's name like that.
"Let me guess, you ran here straight away?"
"Duh!" Duh indeed. Really, Angela can't say for certain she will fare any better when she finally visits Cairo. The video calls are a handy substitute, but they don't put her soul at ease quite like having Fareeha here, in her hands.
"How long will you be staying?" the woman asks, detaching the girl from her waist and motioning for her to take the only chair in the room, choosing to lean against her desk herself. She used to let the girl sit in her lap, back before her mother saw. The young woman can still feel the chills breaking out in her spine at the memory of the look she was given then.
"Oh. Just for the weekend." The girl's eyes drop. "I've been trying to get Mom to move to Zurich, but she keeps saying no."
Good. Much as Angela would love to have her Soulmate close by, she and Ana share the opinion that it is better for Fareeha not to, at least for the time being. She's too malleable, too eager to please Angela to let them spend so much time together now. It's only the distance that keeps the both of them from spending all their free time together – something newly found soulmates are known for, case in point.
She wonders what the occasion is that the older Amari decided to take her daughter with her for the weekend.
"We can't have everything." She ruffles the girl's hair, earning another pout for it. "Not yet."
"Everyone keeps saying it. I just want to see you more often, that's not too much, is it?" Uh...
"M-maybe once you finish school? It's just two years now, no?"
"Maybe... Mom said she doesn't want me to switch schools in the middle..." Suddenly, her whole being lights up. "Hey! Just had an idea, I could just do online courses!" Fuck. Okay. Damage control.
"Those aren't as good as proper schools, you know? Especially the good ones, and you told me you want to join Overwatch when you're older. You'll have to stand out to do that, and good schooling is a solid first step in that direction." And perhaps, just perhaps it would help to steer her soulmate away from becoming a soldier. It's one of the few things she and Ana agree on neither would mind to influence, should it lead Fareeha away from battlefields, unlikely as that is with the girl's disposition. "Unless you changed your mind?"
"Of course not! I'll be Overwatch, like you!"
"Oh?" the doctor ventures, tone bordering between curious and teasing. "You mean you want to become a doctor?"
"I- uh. I mean, I want to join like you. Not work in a lab. N-not that what you're doing isn't cool! It's very cool!" The girl rushes to reassure Angela, with a look of mortification. "It's just..."
"Less cool than what your mother does?" While her research has the potential to save more lives than Ana ever could, Angela has to begrudgingly admit that the woman cuts a far more dashing figure in her uniform than she does in her lab coat.
"I just mean, I don't know if I could handle sitting in a lab all day. I wanna be out there, doing stuff." Angela suppresses a flinch at the memory of Fareeha boundless... enthusiasm in the face of finding her soulmate. Between the woman's own restlessness and the girl's ceaseless stream of questions, plans and daydreaming, she'd barely done any work at all, most of it late at night, after Ana carried her daughter away from Angela's office, where the girl proclaimed her new residence and fell asleep.
"I suppose it's... not for everybody." People can change, children even more so, but Angela can't remember herself ever approaching the levels of energetic that Fareeha exhibits at all times. She only ever exercised enough to keep herself healthy, her soulmate, on the other hand: "Hey, how did your match yesterday go?"
The girl scowls, turning her gaze away. "We lost. I fouled red halfway through and Nada gave five goals. They're blaming me for losing it."
If they were any good, they wouldn't have lost after swapping out just one player – Angela bites her tongue before saying. Hubris is not a quality to inspire in anyone.
"Don't let them get to you," she says instead. "They're just upset about losing, it'll pass."
"It's not just the match. They're dumb." The words give the doctor a pause. Just two weeks ago Fareeha was beyond excited to tell her about half the girls on her school's football team.
"What do you mean?"
"They don't want to pair with me, and keep staring and whispering when they think I'm not looking, and they only talk with me when I mess up in practice. And they locked me out of the locker room once, but Coach shouted at them and they didn't try again, but..." What? She mentioned none of these things the last time around, and it doesn't seem like she's trying to hide it.
"How long has this been going?"
"The last two weeks." ...Oh.
"Have you told your mom?"
"About what? It's just some girls being stupid." And yet here she is, telling Angela instead, helpless anger marring her face.
"Come here." She kneels in front of the chair and pulls the girl into an embrace, feeling her uneven breath, and the faint beat pressing against her chest in too quick a fashion. Gently, the blonde starts to rub circles on her soulmate's back. "It's okay. They really are stupid if they'd push someone like you away." Like her. Just two weeks of knowing this girl, just two short days of being around her and already she's certain of her words. Only the blind wouldn't see Fareeha for who she is.
Slowly, the thumping fades as the Fareeha's heart slows down, and Angela has to marvel at how this girl has so simply and utterly accepted her into her heart - how she's found her way into hers. Truthfully, it's scary how much trust Fareeha puts in her, terrifying in all the ways she could fail it.
The woman closes her eyes, allowing herself for a moment the comfort of simply holding her soulmate in her arms.
"Feeling better?"
"Yhm." The girl murmurs into her shoulder, drawing a smile from the doctor. "Thanks."
"Anytime." Angela draws back, her grin, she can see, contagious. "Say, I was about to take a break before you came, how about we go get something sweet together?" she asks, offering her hand for the girl to take.
