So, I wasn't expecting to write any more of this pairing, it was small before the Xmas comic came out, but apparently, there are still some fans of it out there! Thus, this fic! Thanks to Taxima on AO3 for the prompt! I figure I might as well just couch this right now: the fic isn't meant to diminish or downplay canon!Tracer's sexuality at all, it's just a fic for a rarepair I've enjoyed writing for for a while. Also, I'm used to writing fluff, and this is decidedly non-fluffy, so if it sucks, that's why. Hope y'all like it!
The rain continued to fall, but hardly anyone noticed. The chaos that had erupted so violently mere hours before was still echoing throughout the town as sirens blared to and from the rubble of the Overwatch compound. Lena still didn't know exactly what had happened, only that everything was going to be different from here on. That, and that she needed to go to the hospital.
Her home and, likely, Overwatch as a whole were gone, a smoking crater was all that was left of either. Some of her closest friends were missing, but here she was, across the street from the hospital, standing in the rain. She had seen at least four ambulances come in since she got here 10 minutes ago but he was already there. Had been out of surgery for at least an hour, she had been told. She would've been here sooner, but she had been trying her hardest to help at the base in any way that she could.
Or would she have been? Had she just been volunteering for any odd job to avoid coming here? To put off facing this particular pain? She had to, though. She had to be strong. He would be for her. Lena clenched her fists and darted across the street, hesitating only for a moment at the door before pushing forward.
She was met with more chaos. Disaster had a way of doing that, spreading chaos like a disease. Inside the emergency room, doctors and orderlies shouted over each other, shepherding their patients in and out of doors. Overwatch personnel in various states of injury lined the walls, their groans and coughs providing an undertone of misery to the whole procession.
Through the din of noise and shambling of the injured, Lena spotted her closest friend. Angela stood tall at the far end of the room, directing the chaos like a skilled conductor. The Doctor saw Lena and rattled off a litany of instructions to the nearby doctors before moving to meet her.
"Angela! Where is he? Is he going to be okay? Tell me he's going to be okay. Tell me ever-" stammered Lena before her friend gently covered her mouth.
"Lena, he's resting in a room in the east wing. His surgery will leave him exhausted for quite a while," said Angela, struggling to keep her voice and her face as professional as possible. Jesse was a close friend of hers as well. "You need to prepare yourself, Lena. His injuries were extensive and required major reconstructive surgery; his entire left arm had to be replaced."
Lena reeled, she had heard that it was bad, but she didn't know for sure the extent of his injuries. The Pilot fell into a haze, a thousand different scenarios flying in her head on how things could've been different and how things might be going forward. Angela stepped aside to give more orders to her doctors before leading Lena past the swinging doors towards his room in the east wing. Before she could get her thoughts in order she found herself standing in front of a door, 'McCree, Jesse' written on a display screen with various charts blinking past, none of which looked particularly good.
"Listen, Lena; we've done everything we can for him at the moment," Angela turned Lena around and gave her a serious look, the most serious look her friend had ever given her. "The road in front of him will be much easier with you by his side."
"I know," was all Lena could manage to say, her throat coming dangerously close to swelling shut.
"He's asleep right now and should be for quite some time," said Angela. "Go in when you're ready."
Lena rested her hand on the door's handle as her friend moved back to the waiting room. Angela was right, of course, Jesse needed her. Now more than ever. And here she was, hesitating at the door. A profound sense of guilt came over her, the man that meant most to her had already lost so much today. When he woke up, not only would he find himself missing an entire arm but his mentor and father-figure as well, not to mention the only place in the world that he considered home laid in ruins and was unlikely ever to come back.
She turned the handle and stepped through the threshold. After the loudness and chaos that seemed to seep into the rest of the hospital, McCree's dark room felt almost eerily quiet, nothing but the soft beeps and whirring from the multitude of machines that appeared to grow out of him. The soft lights filtering past the curtain on the room's only window revealed an oxygen mask covering his mouth. Even with the mask, though, there was no hiding the cuts and bruises that covered the rest of his face. The damage probably extended to the rest of his body, lying just underneath his surgical gown and the bed's blankets as his chest gently rose and fell with each breath.
Lena's steps toward the bed could only be described as timid. Each step brought a new cut, a new stitch, a new bruise into stark relief before his left arm came into view. She let out a gasp and the tears that she had so valiantly been holding back wrenched themselves from her eyes. She took the seat by the bed and fought herself, trying her hardest to quiet the sobs as they wracked her body, the full gravity of Jesse's situation coming down on her in its totality all at once.
She lightly took his metal left hand in hers, and hundreds of memories poured through her thoughts - watching a movie nestled into his shoulder, holding his hand during parades, the two of them all smiles under a shower of confetti, her resting her cheek in his palm, with all of its callouses and blisters but still managing warmth and softness.
She sat there and cried silently for what felt like ages, the exhaustion that she had refused to acknowledge slowly seeping into her very bones. The tears stopped coming at some point, and a pained smile came in its place. He was still here and even if his road forward was going to be difficult, she was determined to make it easier. Before long, she fell asleep in the chair, leaned over the bed, holding Jesse's new hand.
WOOF. So, I felt this one deserved a preface as well as an afterword. It was rough writing this one, y'all. I tried to pull from my own experiences with hospitals, feeling so many different emotions, not all of which I'm proud of, I can only hope I did the scenario justice. I almost want to write a small, extended ending with a much lighter tone. If anyone wants that, I write it up and add a super small chapter.