Hana and Lena climbed up in Hana's pull out bed, her own twin being too small for the both of them. The pullout was much less comfortable, but Lena didn't want to be alone, even just alone on a couch or in a bed. Hana didn't seem to mind.

Despite sleeping for the vast majority of those five days, Lena felt exhausted by the human interaction required of her that evening. That social obligation didn't exactly seem like it was going away, though, especially since Hana looked as hungry for information as a wolf might look at an injured deer, lower on the food chain.

Lena didn't feel like talking at all. She sighed. "Hana, I'm worn out, okay? Sorry, love." She squeezed her throbbing temples with the pads of her fingers.

Hana only saddled up closer beside Lena on the bed. "Oh, I won't make you tell me anything, but I'm pretty sure you'll just start talking eventually."

Lena rolled her eyes with a tired smile fighting onto her face. "Angela's a lot more subtle. I would have thought she'd taught you the art of persuasion before any medical care."

Hana stuck her little pink tongue out. "She taught me the special places to kill a man bigger than I am, which is more than you ever did."

Lena have a little side nod. "That's true, but I'm your sis, not your mum." She flopped back to avoid Hana's prying eyes. "Sisters don't do shit except look out for each other, right?"

Hana didn't say anything but Lena could feel her smiling gaze. She flopped down beside Lena and breathed a sigh of contentment. "You said you're tired. Wanna sleep?"

Lena's heavy eyelids drooped closed once in assent.

The next morning came from a dreamless slumber broken into a million pieces by sudden waking and, once, Hana throwing Lena nearly off the fold out entirely for throwing her leg over Hana's thigh. She'd yelled about no spooning rules or something. Lena was far too foggy to remember.

She stirred and opened her eyes to find Hana completely missing from the room and felt the cold hand of fear grip her heart at the thought of losing anyone even for a minute. Five days were a short time and an eternity.

Alone with thoughts.

Alone with herself.

"Hey, you alright?" Hana's chipper voice made Lena start with her hand going to her choral accelerator as if she'd been shot. Bullets went straight through, but it was still unpleasant and typically screwed up the hardware.

This didn't make her flicker. Just startled her. She took a deep breath and smiled at where Hana's voice had come from. "Do you always sleep on the floor?"

Hana popped up over the edge of the foldout with her Cheshire grin. "Better than fucking spooning. What the hell, Lena?"

Lena grinned a genuine grin this time. "Happy Christmas to you too, Hana."

The two of them took another minute to stretch and poke at each other about bad morning breath and unexpected waking up next to one another before going out into the general sitting area, which was already beginning to fill with sleepy bed heads and one particularly chipper Angela.

Lena assumed Angela and the unseen Fareeha had gotten up early to do more than just organize boxes under the tree. She shook her head, trying to forget the times she'd walked up on them or walked in on them doing… things.

Jesse's smiling face greeted them and looked too much like a kid on, well… Christmas morning. He patted the spot next to him on the floor with his free left hand and motioned to Lena. He was without his trademark hat and cigar and instead wore blue striped, matching pajamas. It was fucking wild. Lena thought he might not ever change out of his poncho and boots, but here he was looking like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Jack sat beside him, close enough for intimacy with hand holding and knee touching, but not nearly as close as Mei and Zarya, who intertwined legs and stroked each other's hair. Zarya's muscle tank was backwards.

Genji and Zenyatta were yet to be seen, but Lena figured they were just as busy as everyone else seemed to have been. Her heart ached a little at everyone's closeness, and there she sat empty handed and broken hearted.

No time to feel sorry for yourself, a more rational voice chided.

The less rational voice blew raspberries at the rational one.

Fareeha came around the corner wearing a messy, white, elastic on beard that looked like it had lipstick in it. At least, Lena hoped the bright red was lipstick. It looked positively ridiculous, but Fareeha's smiling eyes brought laughter to the surface for everyone in the living room.

Angela came in, clad in oven mitts and a knit sleepwear dress of candy cane stripes. "They're peppermint chocolate muffins, and for the grinches that don't like that, there's blueberry in the kitchen."

Lena barely noticed, but Jack squeezed Jesse's right hand at the announcement and rose, shooting Angela a bird. She, instead of her usual reprimand, laughed and slapped his shoulder with an oven mitt clad hand. Christmas cheer, right?

Fareeha took the tray from Angela, deftly slipping off the mitts to use as pot holders and placed them on the living room's long dining table that stretched against the western wall. She turned, took Angela into her arms, and began kissing Angela's face and neck, beard still affixed but now eschew.

Lena's heart panged slightly at the sight of them, and she could remember Widowmaker's chapped lips snagging against her own. With a great effort, she stifled a sigh of remembrance that often found her in the quiet of the night when she was unable to sleep. Their quiet interactions and loving gaze was nice for the ambiance, but the pain in Lena's heart only matched the burning of her leg as she pushed herself to stand. She could almost ignore it now, her leg. It would buckle from time to time, but she was mostly recovered, and she figured that it was as close to healed as it would ever get.

Hana was right beside Lena before she could even wince. "You okay?"

Lena rolled a shoulder and made a noncommittal face. She didn't want to worry anyone in the first place, but she sure as hell wasn't going to worry anyone on Christmas. "Fine. It's the ol' leg again. Not bad, but it still gives me the dickens when it's raining."

Hana's eyes flicked to the window. "Raining? More like snowing."

Lena looked over to the window in surprise. Sure enough, snow was falling lazily outside, and the fire crackled. A picture perfect Christmas with the most dysfunctional family she'd ever known. Her felt herself smiling - odd for her face after the days of isolation.

Jesse clapped her on the shoulder as he walked by to snag a muffin and handed one to Lena. "If you're one for the Christmas cheer, unlike-" He raised his voice. "the grumpy old man."

From the kitchen came, "Fuck you, Jess."

That brought another round of laughter from everyone, including Winston - who began descending the stairs from his attic hidey hole. Zenyatta, coming up from the basement, also chuckled in his very tranquil way. Somewhere in her mind, Lena wondered if it was against his teachings to laugh at such vulgarity.

Genji walked up close behind him and startled Lena for a good two and a half seconds. The top part of his face plate was completely removed, and his eyes shone with mirthful light. His smile was something that was partially gruesome but equally charming. His lower jaw was completely replaced by a metal mandible that circled up into where his hairline should have been. Without the rest of his faceplate, Lena could see what a handsome man he could have been, but with the white, knotty scarring, she wondered how on earth his brother had so mutilated him. The only thing to do that kind of damage would have been machinery. Surely, no one could have done that without realizing the wrongdoing being committed.

It was the first time Lena had seen his skin since Angela brought him back from the brink of death, but even then, she'd only seen pictures of his former self. To Lena, Genji was a man under a mask that had become the mask. Now, she felt slightly ashamed that she'd almost forgotten his… humanity.

Zenyatta floated (he rarely walked, saying that it didn't suit him) to Lena and put his hand on her shoulder, nodding toward the gooey muffin. "Merry Christmas to you, Lena."

She took a bite and munched, crunching bits of peppermint between her teeth. "Do you even celebrate like… real Christmas, Zen?"

He chuckled, and Lena could feel his wry smile just from his body language. "Do you?"

She inclined her head and swallowed the minty chocolate. "Fair enough."

Lena then noticed Genji's… pants. She furrowed her brow only for a moment before being nearly barreled over by Zarya, who caught Genji up in her massive arms and slung him around like the small man he was.

"It is good to see you taking my suggestion," she laughed heartily.

Genji's gnarled white scars stood starkly against the blush on his unmarred skin. "Aleksandra… you don't need to comment on my, uh, changes in appearance. As such." His voice was stiff and formal - was he embarrassed? "As you said, it was… odd that I rampaged around so unashamedly in my seemingly nude form." He cleared his throat. "I should have picked up on it sooner."

Zenyatta hovered by Lena a moment longer and seemed - again, only by his aura - incredibly smug. "It's a shame that Doctor Ziegler's work is so hidden from the world's eyes, but I do suppose that he is more comfortable this way." He sighed. "He covers himself, but he need not. There is much to him that is scarred but intact."

Lena looked at the very tiny Genji laughing with the large, busty Russian. She'd never considered that parts of him were anything more than metal, but then again, she had to know that Angela had to have something to build on.

Everyone was laughing. Everyone was close together and enjoying themselves. The smile that found its way into Lena's face was both pained and hopeful. She remembered Christmas at the Lacroix house like it was only hours ago.

She hadn't spent a long Christmas with anyone since then. She'd been on the run, stopping by only for a minute here and there. It felt. Oddly nostalgic. She could remember times of Overwatch Christmas parties and times in her childhood, but nothing seemed as wholesome and dysfunctional as this. Her time with the Lacroixs was nearly textbook perfection of a nearly nuclear family's Christmas doings, but even it had its moments. This was like cousins and aunts and uncles and parents and siblings all ran amok with glorious fervor and barely controlled excitement.

Winston ambled over with a few delicately wrapped presents in the crook of his arm and placed them near the tree but not directly under nor in any particular order like the rest. He nestled in the corner of the room and took up a large portion. He didn't exactly have a place to sit except in his hellish recliner, which was taken over by the snuggling Russian and giggly Mei.

Almost like an audible record scratch, all the commotion of a happy Christmas morning screeched to a silence with a set of rapid knocks on the front door. Angela, the first to move, flitted to the door brightly and flung it open to reveal a short, smiling woman with silver grey hair hanging low over a black eyepatch, and a very… very large man holding a very large, red bag over his shoulder.

Nobody moved.

Winston, surprisingly, was the first to break the brief, pregnant silence. "Ana!"

Angela's laugh rang out cheerfully as the small woman wrapped the taller blonde in her arms. Reinhardt wedged himself through the door with his own booming laugh, and the room burst into flurrying action, almost everyone crowding around the newcomers.

Hana left Lena's side to buzz around just as feverishly as everyone else. Lena knew just as well that Hana had never seen Ana before, and Lena, herself, hadn't had much of a relationship with the woman. By the time Lena had joined Overwatch, Ana Amari had been appearing at base less and less, growing more and more absorbed in her work. Obsessed, some might have said. Even now, bent slightly and wrinkled by time, something about her was just so… intimidating.

Then a thought struck her.

Wait, wasn't she supposed to be dead?

Her head spinning, Lena's gaze lashed around the room, looking for answers, to finally settle on Fareeha. Ana's daughter was the only other one to sit back and let everyone else crowd the large man and small woman. Her eyes were dark, and her face was drawn.

Lena approached her, looking up at Fareeha curiously. "You don't exactly look happy."

Fareeha's eyes did not move from their fixed position on Ana Amari. "No."

Lena was smart enough to leave it at that despite her curiosity. And, damn, was she curious.

The raised volume from sheer excitement began dying down, and Lena noticed Ana looking over Angela's shoulder at Fareeha, making long, uncomfortable eye contact. Lena suddenly felt like she was listening in on a private conversation and looked away, but she didn't walk away from Fareeha's side. Being alone seemed to be the last thing that Fareeha needed at the moment, and Lena wasn't about to abandon her friend. Unfortunately, Fareeha still wore the terrible nylon beard and looked strangely comedic even through the dire situation.

Some part of her wondered why Angela wasn't providing more support.

Angela seemed to notice the mother-daughter staring contest and trailed off, looking back at the sullen Fareeha. Her eyes slid away from Fareeha's like food sliding off a teflon pan as Fareeha spared a quick, unhappy glance at Angela.

Ana Amari gently brushed past Angela and the rest, who were now watching and still whispering quietly.

"Lena," the rough voice said with a nod of her head. "How's the leg?"

Lena's mouth felt dry at the smirking, older woman's words, and like the breaking dawn, she remembered the dart in her leg out in Heerenveen. She felt her mouth fall open like a door with a bad latch. That's what Angela meant...

Ana Amari just smiled with her thin lips and even more with the twinkling eyes.

The twinkle, however, dimmed as she turned her gaze to her daughter. Her mouth opened to speak, but Fareeha beat her to it.

"You didn't tell me you were coming." She nodded toward Angela as confrontationally as Lena had ever seen. "She knew." She jerked her head to Jack and Jesse. "They knew." She ground her teeth and looked at Winston. "He knew." She closed her eyes and took a breath, sounding a little less angry the next time she spoke. "You didn't tell your own daughter that you were coming. You didn't tell me you were okay. I haven't heard from you in months, and yet somehow, everyone else knows."

Somehow, Lena thought it might be inappropriate to pitch in with an 'I didn't know either, Fareeha,' so she kept her mouth shut.

But it was hard.

Ana frowned in the vacuum of silence left by Fareeha's words. "It isn't a good enough excuse, but…" She chewed on her lips in the same way that Fareeha did when she was carefully considering her words. "I didn't know how to tell you. Our last…" She looked around as if suddenly aware of the company. "Maybe we shouldn't talk about this here."

Fareeha stood her ground, shining calves glinting in the morning's firelight. "I think here is a perfectly good place to talk." Lena saw her jut out her jaw in a certain type of indignant stubbornness and could suddenly see her as a small girl with a vicious pouting streak. It might have been cute in a different circumstance.

Ana sighed. "Our last correspondence was not exactly on good terms, and I didn't know how to… tell you that I would just… reappear." She grimaced. "I didn't handle it well enough." She tilted her head. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

Fareeha's anger was as quickly gone as it sparked, and she blushed, looking away and pulling away the ridiculous beard. "Don't worry about it. Come get a muffin."

The tension in the room dissipated and filled in with laughter and merriment.

Lena remained still as Ana embraced Fareeha and began walking away, but Ana turned around to look at her. Her blood ran cold as a cold, calculating eye rested on her, assessing her condition.

"You should take it easier on that leg, squirt. Medicine can only do so much if you're stubborn." She winked.

Lena sweat.

After the thrill of Reinhardt and Ana's arrival, everyone settled around the tree and television where Athena chatted quietly with Zenyatta and Genji as everyone else twittered like birds.

Lena thought Athena looked happy in her still-new omnic presentation instead of her logo, which was more than enough to make Lena smile. Athena deserved a day off. Lena didn't talk to Athena anymore as much as she used to, but she still loved Athena. Still cared. She was part of the family too.

Zarya clapped her large hands, and Lena noticed ice blue nail polish on perfectly buffed and shaped nails. Mei's doing.

"I am impatient. Let's begin the presents."

Angela giggled and sneaked a kiss on Fareeha's cheek before flitting over to the presents, eyes bright and glittering. She loved handing out the gifts, and she always went in a certain order. This year was slightly different, but she amended her handout accordingly.

Zenyatta.

Zarya.

Winston.

Mei.

Lena. She smiled, butterflies taking off in her stomach. She loved gifts but never knew how to properly respond.

Jesse.

Jack.

Hana.

Genji.

Fareeha.

Then a blank spot where she'd once been, now conveniently building a wall between Fareeha and Ana.

Angela smooched Reinhardt on the temple every time she went by him. "My present to you," she said every. single. time.

They would, as tradition incurred, open one present per person in alphabetical order until getting to the last person, who would start the line again but in the opposite direction.

Angela loved that shit.

Lena thought it was rather cute.

Angela always got to open presents first, but this year was special for everyone. It was the first time that Ana Amari did more than ghost by in conversation, all ephemeral grace and deadly beauty. Reinhardt spent some time with them all, from time to time, but Lena didn't do much more than smile and listen to his stories. She felt a bit on the outside with him, unlike Hana, who loved to curl up beside the large man and watch his favorite old movies. Lena liked him and his company, but she never felt an urge to talk to him first. Maybe it had something to do with being a little nervous about the man who meant so much to Angela.

Ana looked down at her lap and at Reinhardt's hand covering both of hers. "It seems that I'm fresh out. Why don't you just open yours, Angela, dear?" Her smile was genuine despite the feigned disappointment in her voice.

Reinhardt, however, nearly threw himself from the couch and knelt beside Ana's leg, one hand still on hers and the other in his shirt pocket. He withdrew a small, black box with a large smile on his big, gnarled, handsome face. "Ana, my dear. I've been saving this present for years."

Angela began pumping her legs and squirming like a small, excited child. Fareeha looked impassive to an outsider, maybe, but Lena could see the absolute horror in her seemingly calm eyes. Lena smiled, but not at the storybook love tale before her. She smiled at Fareeha, who was watching her childhood hero and her mother getting fucking engaged in a secret safehouse in the Middle of Nowhere, The Netherlands.

Lena watched Fareeha's face grow paler as Ana took Reinhardt's face in both of her hands and kissed him.

Lena felt the bottom of her own stomach fall out at the kiss. She couldn't help but wonder if things could have gone differently with Amélie if she would be here too. What she would think about Ana and Reinhardt sharing this intimate moment with a whole crowd? What would she think about all of them? What would she think of the gifts? Being able to have her own things…? Being given her own things…?

Lena lost the entire romantic moment to her thoughts and chewed on an already ragged fingernail. Her chest felt heavier than usual. Her fingers felt numb. She suddenly didn't want to be in the room, presents and Christmas cheer or none. She wanted to go back to her room and be quiet by herself. Even more, she wanted to feel the night air against her skin and the forming dew through her suit. She wanted to run away from this.

She'd been running for so long, even before Overwatch gave her time powers and a gun.

Ana, now thoroughly wrapped in Reinhardt's bulging arms, placed a free hand on Angela's. "I did not mean to steal the limelight, child. Go and open your gifts."

Angela, still jiggling one of her legs, squeezed Fareeha's hand, who withdrew and folded her arms, seeming to be a little more contented than only minutes before. Lena felt alone when she looked into Fareeha's loving eyes as she complacently watched Angela's meticulous present opening ceremony.

She tore open her own gifts with only barely tainted enthusiasm and laughed and smiled with the others, becoming embarrassed when people would open her gifts to them. Her heart fluttered and skipped with every gift, thoughtful or seemingly generic. She loved her weird family.

She missed Overwatch.

Everyone made their rounds and lounged happily on their mounds of cardboard boxes and wrapping paper, tinkering idly with their gifts and gadgets.

Zarya wasted no time in wiggling her large fingers into the custom leather and rabbit fur lined gloves Lena bought for her, which made Lena's smile widen. She plucked through her other gifts and kept laughing at each revisit.

Mei flitted around snapping pictures with her new instant camera while attempting to wear all of the clothes given to her at once.

Jesse fiddled with a new belt buckle Angela had given him and longingly eyed one of Lena's gifted cigars. (The new belt buckle didn't look too different from the old one. It still read BAMF in big golden letters. When McCree pointed this out, Angela soberly informed him that "This one stands for Bad At Making Friends," with a twinkle in her eye). His eye, however, was easily drawn away by the rest of his hoard. One of his hands was occupied with Jack's, who sorted through a multitude of leather paraphernalia - sexual and domestic.

Angela was nearly hidden in a mound of bath products and fine robes, the rest of the team's subtle suggestion that she should take a day off. She also wasted no time flipping through the album booklets lodged in her CDs, which seemed a little old fashioned but endearing.

Fareeha had similar gifts, but what really made her blush and bluster were the stacks of trashy gay pulps. Her face seemed about as red as Angela's Santa hat.

Hana obtained oodles of merchandise from rare and obscure shows and movies as well as some vintage stuff from around Jack's time. He'd even given her one of his old band shirts, signed by the whole band. She looked like she'd struck pure gold to Lena. It was good to see Hana so happy and unencumbered by worry, even if only for a while.

Genji had many small things - a few books, a couple candles, a scarf or three. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself, despite his push for a minimum of worldly possessions.

Zenyatta found himself with new robes and sandals, basics that he needed, and a connector cable specially designed to fit into his cranial compartment (still attached to his body)that could communicate directly with Athena's systems. He'd been very adamant - as adamant as Lena had ever seen, at least - about his policy against receiving nonessential gifts. Everyone respected his wish.

Oh, and everyone got new Mei sweaters.

Which everyone put on.

Immediately after opening.

When everyone stretched out lazily, Hana stood abruptly and flitted to her room like an overexcited bird. She returned with an armload of strangely wrapped boxes and tubes. The way she tottered in made Lena laugh loudly while others chuckled. It felt good to laugh. Her load was nearly bigger than she was.

Hana quickly handed out the presents and bowed deeply. "Open all at once! Otherwise it'll ruin the surprise!" Her twinkling eyes were nearly closed from her fierce grin.

The weight on Lena's lap felt oddly familiar. But a box was just a mysterious box until she saw what was inside. She'd had so many gifts…

Quickly, almost understandably, Hana blurted, "Threetwoonego."

Everyone tore in, paper ripping filling the air with a nearly eerie cacophony.

Lena pulled at the cardboard box's tape and ended up ripping the box flaps instead. She huffed and rolled her eyes but dove in through the squeaking styrofoam peanuts. Around the same time, she heard Angela's gasp and Jesse's laughter. Fareeha said a stream of words that vaguely sounded like she might be swearing in her mother tongue. Lena forced her curious eyes down until her hands wrapped around the sure grip of what could only be a blaster.

She pulled it out, squeezing her eyes shut.

She could feel her heart drumming an uneven beat in her ears.

She opened her eyes and nearly knocked herself backward in shock. Golden light glinted warmly off the barrel of a golden blaster, identical to her own. Except.

Gold.

Solid gold?

Surely not.

And yet.

It looked gold.

But it wasn't heavy.

Hana's shit eating grin was all too apparent.

"Sooo…?"

Angela was the first to recover from her dumbfounded, slack jawed state of being. "Hana… are these real…?"

Hana snorted with an eye roll. "Of course they're real. What am I? Some kind of cheapskate?"

Jack looked up from his gleaming rifle. Lena, herself, hadn't quite recovered. "Hana, how much did this fucking cost?"

Hana shrugged. "Oh, you know. Over your pay grade." She said it so nonchalantly.

Lena felt her voice slip into the accent she'd faded over the years of not being near her homeland. "Oi, mate, what the fuck makes you think you'n go 'round givin' everyone bloody gold weapons?" She snorted, thinking the blaster in her hand more a mantelpiece decoration than a functioning thing. And bloody fucking Christ, she had two of them. "Showin' us all up, love."

Hana smiled, unperturbed. "Oh, I plan on sending in Rein and Ana's orders as soon as possible, if they plan on sticking around for a few days." She looked away with some semblance of sheepishness. "Too much for you plebs, probably."

Jesse started with a chuckle. "Too much?"

His chuckle turned quickly into a crying cackle, repeating the phrase in wheezing whispers. Everyone joined suit. Zarya laughed until she was threatening to throw up. Lena's sides hurt; her cheeks already hurt from smiling so much. And some tiny part of her wondered how in the fuck Hana managed to sneak gold weapons past them all. She was really something else.

The corners of her eyes prickled until tears spilled over, but there wasn't anything in particular she would be crying about. Laughing did weird things to her. There was deep seated relief in laughing and catharsis in crying. Unfortunately, however, she continued on a moment longer than everyone else, drawing a concerned look from Angela, but she didn't think anyone else noticed.

Lena rummaged around in the bottom of her box to find another package, plastic and flat, and dislodged it from the packing peanuts. It was… hot pink. The same color as Hana's suit colors. And her accessories. And her… face decoration.

Lena's voice cut through the fading laughter. "Is this a… suit?"

Everyone else started frantically rummaging through their packaging.

Later that evening while everyone sipped happily on throat-burning eggnog, Reinhardt went around giving everyone small gifts from his travels. Lena skipped the beverages and Aleksandra's offers for her own personal moonshine, but she did accept Reinhardt's gifts.

His gifts were always small but very personal. The fact that he thought about them while he was off traveling the world was more than enough, but he always brought something back that startled Lena. Sometimes she didn't even know she needed it.

It'd been too long since he'd been around - at least two years, but he made up for it.

Lena sat a bit off to the side, nestling herself on the corner of the countertop, out of the way from any of the kitchen's cabinets, and sipping on some hot chocolate. Reinhardt left the great fray of increasingly drunken family cluster. Even Hana had been drinking, the rarity that it was.

"Hello, little dear," he said quietly. "You've not been interacting the way you normally do." He leaned against the counter next to where Lena sat. His head was level with Lena, despite her sitting on a relatively high surface.

"Hey, love." She shrugged with a little sarcastic eyeroll. She didn't want to worry him. "I don't like crowds as much as I used to, I don't think."

Reinhardt nodded solemnly. "Being in the middle of battle often has deterred me from throwing myself into crowds." He looked over at the familial cluster, all laughing and Angela singing and drinking quite a lot while sitting on Fareeha's broad shoulders. "This is family, though." His eyes turned soft as he looked at Ana's small form. "This is the kind of crowd I could get behind. I have left my family, and my children no longer know who I am."

Lena couldn't stop her eyebrows from shooting up. She'd never considered that Reinhardt had a family outside Overwatch, but then again… She couldn't imagine that a failed organization could keep anyone under their grasp like it could keep her. She had nothing else.

No.

She did.

She did have someone.

"My wife divorced me while Overwatch was still going strong and took our two little girls." He sighed. "I can't say that I didn't deserve it. I threw myself into harm's way over and over, and she couldn't take that any longer. We'd been married twenty years."

Lena, quite intelligently, interrupted, "Why are you telling me this?"

Reinhardt chuckled his deep chuckle. "I suppose that I'm telling you that the family you make is most important."

She smiled weakly. "This is more a family than anything biological I've had."

Reinhardt nodded and dug out a small box from his pocket, very similar to the velveteen box hed had for Ana. He opened it and handed it to Lena. She peered inside the faux satin lined box and saw a simple silvery band. "Remember who you choose Lena."

She took the box gingerly and with a confused expression. Her brain had blanked out fairly hard. "What is this?"

Reinhardt looked down with a twinkling clear eye, the other looking still as bright, if not clouded. "I hear things, Lena. You'll know when it's time."

He stood and walked off.

She remained, peering down at the silver band, and plucked it out, putting it on the fourth finger of her right hand with a smile.

After everyone was reduced to a raucous mess, Winston lumbered over to the quiet Lena and adjusted his glasses nervously.

"Lena, there's something I want to show you."

Lena smiled, still slightly bewildered by Reinhardt's gift. She followed him to his room in the attic. She'd missed Winston.

"You see, Lena, I've been working day and night to try to find you another alternative for your chronal harness. I know it can be…" He cleared his throat. "Cumbersome."

She cocked her head to the side, trying to calm her increasing heart rate and trying not to get too excited, but her brain and mouth had other plans. "You know how I can take it off?"

Winston laughed uncomfortably. "No, no, but I have made a way to…" He started laughing at himself. "A way to lighten your load."

Lena's brow furrowed. A small spark of agitation itched in her gut. "Well, what is it, love?"

He pulled out a small box from under a workbench, and Lena thought it might have been the same workbench where she'd seen something that Winston quickly steered her away from.

He pressed the box into her hand gently. It was about the size of a shoebox.

She looked up at him, one hand on the lid. "It's not gonna be some prankster box of snakes is it? You're getting my hopes up here."

Winston laughed and just nodded. "Go on."

And so she did.

Her heart sank a little at the contents - strangely colored jewelry of all sorts - earrings, bracelets, rings, and the like.

"Uh… Thanks…?"

Winston barked a startlingly loud laugh for his gentle demeanor. "I see your face and your lack of understanding. Let me explain." He went over and sat down on his hammock, patting beside him. Lena wandered over and sat, still confused. "You see, the way your chronal accelerator works is that it keeps you rooted in this time stream, to put it simply."

Lena snorted. "Yeah, love, I wouldn't really get it if you went into your sciency thing. I know mechanics, but that kind of stuff is beyond me."

Winston nodded in understanding. "What this does is keeps you rooted in one place because of the way it's spread over key points on your upper body. The way your chronal accelerator works-"

"It's a large, focused point."

He nodded.

She frowned, her thoughts racing. "So this is like. Several weaker points to do the same thing."

He nodded again. "The only drawback that I see is that you cannot manipulate your time stream with these. That would break them and…"

A chill ran over Lena. She could think of what it would do.

On the other hand, though, her excitement began building and her eyes began stinging in the corners again. A mirthful bubble rose in her chest and burst in a loud laugh. Her laugh turned into tears again, but she didn't bother to hide them. Winston wrapped an arm around her comfortingly and let her cry.

Dear god, she could finally look normal.

She could look like everyone else.

Lena crept back into Hana's room somewhere around two in the morning.

She carefully laid down on the pullout bed and stared at the ceiling.

Hana was more than a little passed out close to her, pulling down the bed on that side, and Lena could feel Hana's drunken snores rattling the air.

She'd felt minorly surprised that Hana was willing to drink the wine and the spiked nog, but it was Christmas. She was with family.

Family.

Lena closed her eyes with a sigh, thinking thoughts about Amélie. Widowmaker. Whatever she'd been between.

She thought about Amélie's lips on her own and Amélie's hands on her shoulders.

Amélie had been a part of her family before Talon took her away.

Gérard had been a part of her family before Talon took him away.

In her own way, she supposed she loved them both - Amélie in a different way than Gérard but…

She shook her head.

Amélie was still her family.

She'd let Amélie walk away.

Words met her ears, almost startling her to a jump before realizing they were her own. "God, why am I here?"

She sat bolt upright, heart beating hard, knowing what she had to do.

She quickly and quietly crept from the bed and grabbed her portable gifts and snagged a backpack from her room, grateful that she'd kept on her chronal harness. She was going to need it.

Lena whisked out of the bathroom, sorry for the mess but grateful for the silence and knowledge that everyone was as pissed as the night she disappeared and reappeared with a bullet in her leg.

She reached the back door, slightly concerned that her only form of communication was reduced to her phone.

The sides of her head felt cold despite the beanie she'd snagged from a drawer. She felt exposed.

Like a nerve.

She reached for the back door's knob, and died a thousand deaths as Athena blinked to life on the television in the general living area.

"Lena, where are you going?" Her voice seemed… tinny with fear. Lena could hear the attempt at modulation, but she knew Athena like no other. Except Winston. Maybe Hana at this point.

"Athena, I have to go. You know I have to go." Lena kept her voice quiet despite knowing everyone was out like a light. She didn't want to risk it.

"Lena, I can't." Her voice grew louder with panic. "Lena, last time you got hurt, we fell apart."

Lena furrowed her brow. "We were fine? You'll be fine, Athena. Just let me go."

Athena shook her head fervently and desperately. "I won't let you go, Lena."

She was scared.

Deep pangs of hurt and sympathy coursed through Lena, but another part of her was angry. She wanted to just be able to go. Lena took a breath and tried to make her voice sound calm. "Athena."

"I'll wake Angela if you try to leave." Her voice was growing more panicked with every sentence.

That did it for Lena. Her anger boiled over and colored her whispers, turning them harsh and merciless. "Athena, stand down."

Athena's panicky babbling ceased. Her voice came out small. "Is that an order or a suggestion?"

Lena gritted her teeth and felt herself almost hissing, filled with piss and vinegar and the need to run. "Executive order. Authorization code AA334, codename Tracer. Stand down. Tell no one."

Athena's image flickered to her logo, tinted red, and her voice came out small and as monotone as Lena had ever heard. "I thought we were more to you than that."

And she blinked off.

Lena felt a small flicker of shame threaten to blaze within her, but she squashed it. Now wasn't the time to feel sorry for herself or anyone else.

Now was time to leave.