Thank you for all the support and reviews, this fanfiction is very much a labor of love, and every morning when I wake up to new subscribers and followers, I realize how much more I desperately need to write!
Very sorry for the slow updates lately, I promise I am working hard and hope you all will stay with me to the conclusion of this story.
Israel.
Present.
"We cannot thank you enough, Mercy." A man who called himself Akiva told her, his weathered hands cupping hers. They were course and hard from a lifetime of hard work and tanned by the bright sun that was never afraid to shine on the land around them. Angela didn't have the heart to tell the old man she didn't go by that name anymore.
Not for a long time.
She gave him a smile, removed her fingers from the man's weak hold, and went to collect her things from the table behind her. Syringes, cloth, bandages, splints, slings…for such a future where she held the power of regenerative capabilities harnessed into her staff, sometimes the old ways were the ones that worked best.
"I just hope justice is brought to those responsible. The Shambali are a peaceful people, and this city didn't deserve what happened to them," Angela bowed slightly, "Thank you for having me here."
"We're having a supper down at the community center. I would be honored if you would come."
There it is. The invitation. The stay. Angela knew they meant well, but she hated it. She hated to be touted as a savior. Being the center of attention for doing the only thing she ever really wanted to do.
If she hadn't gone into Overwatch so young…what would Angela Zeigler have become? She'd have been what she wanted. A doctor, settling down in a nice home just outside of Zurich with a loving husband and a family to come home to every day where she would sip her tea and watch the clouds roll over head, help make dinner, and tuck her children in after a nice story. Then she would wake up, go and help people. Comfort people. Smile and laugh with her patients and be there for them through whatever troubles they had.
That's what she had wanted. Not to become a celebrity or a pretty face slapped onto a poster for propaganda to defeat the Omnic war machines.
"I can't." She said suddenly, realizing that she was drifting off once again. Akiva's eyes lowered, and she could tell her sudden response had hurt him.
"I'm sorry, I have a flight leaving soon. I would love to but…I'll come back some day and join you. It sounds wonderful." Angela reached out to touch the man's arm, and that touch gave him a smile again.
"I am afraid I won't have many months left in me, Mercy. It was so lovely to see you, the girl my son had always idolized. He wanted to be a doctor, too." Akiva's wrinkled features darkened slightly at his words.
She approached the man and put her arms around him as he took a sharp breath, and she could tell that the tears he had probably fought for the past few days were now surfacing.
"He went to fight the robots, like you all had. He never came back to me," Akiva stepped back and brushed under his right eye with a masculine sniffle, "but we won't forget what you all did."
At the airport, Angela was alone in the crowd. The television monitors that decorated the terminal she was sitting in were broadcasting the weather, the news, sports, and a follow up to the bombing.
"The suspects are still at large, but are believed to be a pro-human rights group against the Omnic movement."
Angela felt her skin crawl. A small tick. An urge. She picked up her bag and made her way to a small, likely overpriced, bar situated just down the wide open airport hall.
After all this and we're still our own worst enemy. The Omnics stopped killing…why can't we?
She ordered a bourbon dry and let the drink calm her as she stared out the large wall-high windows at the runway where several large planes gently coasted to and from their positions.
Zeigler hung her head to stare into the almond colored liquid which lapped back and forth against the clear glass that she gently traced her finger over.
The world news was on next, and the iconic ATLAS news animation danced across the screen in a flurry of computer animated graphics of red and white. It was a report out of the Midwestern United States.
A bullet train, heading to Houston Texas was assaulted by forces believed to be…Talon.
Angela picked her head up to the report as a sharp dressed man recounted the incident.
"Reports are sketchy at the moment," The man began, "but we're to believe that former Blackwatch Operative Jesse McCree was responsible for the attempted hijacking. He and the members of the terrorist organization Talon had tried to retrieve an as of yet unidentified device in the cargo of the train. No bodies were recovered, and the passengers and staff thankfully got by with only minor injuries."
"Goodness," The woman correspondent next the man on TV exclaimed, "A train robbery at high noon, what is this the wild west?"
The two laughed, a fake and grating laugh. Angela shook her head and took another swallow from her glass. It wasn't McCree. Not that boy.
A photo of him was then shown with a number to call if he was ever spotted. Zeigler bit down as she took another sharp pull. The peach-fuzz and welcoming eyes she had known at Overwatch now had grown into a grizzled, handsome rouge with two piercing eyes staring out underneath a tattered brim of the same cowboy hat Gabriel had always made fun of him for.
What happened to my family? She thought.
What happened to my family?