Three shots of vodka, two shots of whisky and several ciders meant that Reinhardt was thoroughly sozzled, and Lucio's small cocktail of his own making was only just finished as Zarya and Reinhardt finished their second shot of Whisky. Lena came in from the cold and was waved down by Reinhardt as she threw her Jacket over a chair.

"Lena! Come join us, we are having good time!" Reinhardt shouted. Lena noticed his english got worse the more he was drunk. Zarya nodded and then gave a glance over the drinks that Reinhardt had. Lucio was checking the clock every now and then, and checking his phone.

"Lena," He said as she flopped down beside him, Lena grimaced at the smell of alcohol in the air, and spoke to Reinhardt.

"You sure it's a good idea to be drinking right now?" She asked. Reinhardt shrugged.

"Why not. Nothing is happening, the Omnic won't attack, we've established that. It likes us"

"And what if the Omnic takes a dislike to Angela?" Zarya asked, a hint of ice in her voice. Reinhardt shrugged again.

"She's a smart one"

Lena considered the pros and cons of waking him up the next day with a water bucket, and settled reluctantly on the cons.

"Why don't you have one?" Reinhardt smiled. "No harm in one, right?"

"You might as well, Lena," Zarya said unhappily "One won't hurt"

"No, No" Lena politely declined. "I've stopped drinking"

"What?" Lucio asked. "Since when?"

Since the attacks in Numbani Lena said in her mind. The others were looking at her.

"Worried about weight" She replied. The others accepted that, but Zarya gave her a concerned look.

"What about you, Lucio?" Lena moved it on. "You going on the piss?"

"Heh. No" Lucio smiled back. "My daughter will be calling me soon, and I want her to understand me. Her bedtime is eight and she calls me every day right before"

"Awww"

"Hate it when I can't reply"
"My parents demand I call them once a week" Lena grinned. "Bunch of stress heads"

"Ah, you're not a parent. You'll won't understand"

"He isn't wrong" Reinhardt spoke. "How old is she?" He asked Lucio.

"6 next year" Lucio replied. He was smiling, and Lena felt the sides of her lips tug upwards. His chest was filled with pride and his grin was wide. Lena thought it was adorable.

"Hah! They're cute when they're that age" Reinhardt replied, and took another sip. After smacking his lips, he asked further. "Her mother?"

"We've been married for 10 years" Lucio replied. At that, Reinhardt tensed slightly, and nodded back as he took another sip.

"We meet the year before we married. She was a drummer in a Finnish Punk Band. She came to Brazil to play for the pro-democracy protests" Lucio continued, utterly unaware of the discomfort Reinhardt was feeling as Lucio spoke.

"And, you're still together?" Reinhardt asked, staring into his drink.

"We're… yes" Lucio seemed confused. "Of course we are"

"For ten years?"

"Yes" Lucio said, slightly more apprehensive.

"Hm, Impressive" Reinhardt grunted. Lena began to wonder if he was just a little bit too drunk. His eyes were beginning to droop and his movements were becoming more and more sluggish. Lucio rubbed the back of his neck and then stood.

"I'll be moving to my room. Better connection there" With a final slightly hurt look back, he closed the door behind him, leaving the three alone.

"Perhaps I've had enough" Reinhardt muttered. The two women quietly murmured their agreement. "I'm headed off"

He left to, and when he closed the door behind him, Zarya turned to look at Lena.

"You're not worried about your weight, are you" Lena knew well enough that it was not a question. "You stopped after the attacks"

Lena cast her eyes downward, and fingered a button on her shirt. "Well, I stopped around then, but I was going to anyway"

"Hmm" Zarya said. "And how's your leg since the attack?"

"Still a bit sore at night"

Zarya snorted and went for the whisky bottle. She poured out a small measure for herself, and then replaced the cap. All that time, Lena's narrowed eyes never went off the whisky, and Zarya could tell she was repulsed.

"That's funny" she took a small sip from the glass. "Because I once had the entire right side of my ribs caved in. My sternum collapsed like a folding chair and I could taste the blood coughed up from my lungs" She sighed and shrugged. "But thanks to Angela's magical piss, I was out of hospital in a couple of days. And that's on a tiny amount"

"Yeah. Magic of modern medicine"

"Magic of Angela's medicine, my little brit. But you say you still feel pain in your leg?"

Lena looked behind her at the closed door, and when she was certain they wouldn't be overheard she turned back to Zarya.

"Please stop"

"Lena" Zarya placed a hand on her shoulder and motioned to get her to look at her. "What happened was out of your control"

"It doesn't feel like it was, love"

"You couldn't have done anything more than you did"

"But I could've done it better, yeah?" She pointed to the bottle near Zarya's hand. "That right there. That made me into an idiot"

"It makes fools of us all, Lena"

"I don't mean dancing on top of a fucking table, Zarya" Lena replied sharply. Zarya raised her eyebrow and Lena shrank back. "I'm sorry. I just don't like it when people look for stuff that isn't there"

"I understand" Zarya replied. She relaxed back into her seat. "It's fine"

Silence settled, and as Zarya predicted, Lena tried to fill it in.

"It's just that, whatever action I did, whatever I tried to do, I could have done better if I hadn't drunk"

"You did everything you could have done" Zarya replied. At that, Lena tensed and looked away, and Zarya saw a chance for confirmation, and to make Lena feel better. "But that isn't completely true is it?"

"... You know?"

"I've had my suspicions"

"You know I could have killed Ogundimu?"

"As easily as you could kill me here"

Lena's head jerked up, her eyes wide at the accusation staring at Zarya's impassive face. Finally, she leaned back into her seat.

"Yeah"

"How would you have done it?" Zarya asked. Lena shrugged.

"In the end, It's a matter of cells and energy. I could have blinked through him, displaced his own cells for a single second, and let the shock and heart failure do the rest"

"And you didn't because?" Zarya asked.

"I've… never actually killed before" Lena replied, and Zarya nodded. She had expected as much "It never crossed my mind. Not even in the RAF, I was never put into combat. Well, I was once. But I crashed"

"So the problem is?"

"What if more had died because I was too weak to do what needed to be done?"

Zarya was silent for a while.

"Lena. I can't tell you that one day you won't have to kill. Because truthfully, you may have to" Lena looked miserable "And you know this because you're smart enough to see through the cause and effect. I know you failed to drop your payload while in the RAF." Lena still didn't reply. Zarya grimaced.

"Let me tell you something" Zarya started. " If the time does come… maybe you will have to suffer the dead on your conscious. But if the choice is between them and you; or someone you love, you must be willing to take the plunge. It won't be easy, but it's better than the alternative, take it from me"

"What have you done?" Lena raised an eyebrow. "From what I've heard your record is spotless."

"There are some things that; well, my country wanted to cover up when I was brought into the UN. That stuff about me being a conscripted soldier is true. But I wasn't honourably discharged. I was a deserter."

"What, why?"

"I… disagreed with some of the things we were doing in Mongolia. I was a protestor against the war; Illegal protestor though, all non-show protests were illegal by that point, and they placed me in the military to keep me silent, with the threat that if I don't comply then they'll make sure I never get to compete in any body-lifting competition for Russia"

"I see. So you feel that you sold out for your own reasons?" Lena grimaced, but she didn't try to oversimplify it. Compared to others she knew, that was nothing.

"Not exactly. I complied like you said, sold out my values for my ambition. That's how they operate. Make resistance inconvenient before they repress it directly. Breezed through basic training, was sent to Ukraine to quell Independence Movements" She grew quiet, and Lena knew better then to push. She knew of the independance movements, indescriminate air strikes, car bombings, shooting at protestors and assasinations, the war had been waging since Ukraine was annexed. Lena moved to sit down on the chair besides Zarya.

"I ran. It was too much, and I was scared. With me I took three civilians caught in the crossfire" she shook her head. "I wanted to see Otets again. My father, I mean" She sighed. "I didn't"

"Why?"

"The Russian Government doesn't take kindly to deserters. And if a soldier isn't there to take the punishment, then the family will have to"

"Oh. Oh, jesus"

"See, Lena. That's how your actions can indirectly cause death. I refused to pull a trigger, and people close to me died" Zarya said. "I learnt a good lesson from that. Ten years later they sent an assassin after me. He tried to kill me in Belgrade." She mimicked a slow punch, and Lena watch the masses of muscle and sinew pump like a well oiled machine. "A single punch was all that was needed. He died from a hemorrhage. I don't know what would have happened if Khasan hadn't been with me"

"How so?"

"I can take a gun being aimed at me. Aim it at Khasan" Her eyes flashed. "I don't regret it"

"I had no idea" Lena said.

"I've told the media about what happened to my family. But at that point everyone knows what happens to deserters. I wasn't special" Zarya replied.

"I wouldn't say that I made completely the wrong choice. I love my job. I love my husband. I have good life, My Little Brit. I've saved many lives" She smiled sadly. "But it will be the ones you don't save that stick with you. And I have killed to save others. And I hate that I had to do it, but I would do it again"

Zarya pushed the bottle to Lena. "But keeping that in a place you can't deal with it makes it fester. Just remember that. See some help over it. It helped for me. I made this team. I wanted it to stay outside of systems that perpetuate themselves. And we both know about systems like that"

The quiet following was only broken by the merry crackling of the fire, though Lena hated the sound. Another minute passed, and Zarya sighed. Standing up she walked to the bar and began to pour Lena and her a drink.

"Lemonade alright?"

"Yeah. Thanks"

Zarya brought the glasses over to the seats, and sat down besides Lena.

"Have I ever told you about what happened to my first Drill Sergeant?" Zarya asked. Lena shook her head. "He tried to show me up during basic training and broke his fucking wrist!"
Lena stared for a moment, her glass just touching her lips, and then snorted into the glass.

"That's fucking nothing, Love. Royal Marine I know was trying to impress some bird and stuck his pistol down the front of his trousers"

"Oh Fuck. Was it on safety?"

"No" Lena tried to force down her laugh. "Bastard shot himself in the fucking knob!"

Zarya laughed heartily, and clinked her glass to Lena's. Downing it in one, she smiled to Lena.

"Did I ever tell you I once tried to install a swear box on the team?"

"That's an awful fucking idea"

"I fucking agree. But Lucio brought it in, and it was for charity, so" She shrugged. "Couldn't say no"

"Oh, god"

"Yeah, Angela tried to pay for a month in advance, she stuffed $300 in it at the beginning of the month and carried on swearing like a sailor"

"That fucker still owes me 50 quid!"

"Ooph" Zarya laughed. "Now you see what you're getting into"

"Yeah. Thieving little cunt"

Zarya laughed again along with Lena, and then checked the time.

"It's late, I have drunk too much and am a disgrace to my nation" she barked a tipsy guffaw. "Think I'll go to bed. Hope you don't mind"
"No. No" Lena replied.

Zarya began to follow through following Reinhardt and Lucio. Before she left, she turned to spoke to Lena.

"Talk to Angela about how you are feeling. She might have some words on the matter"

"I don't like unloading on her" Lena said. "She has so much going on in her head, she needs my support, but sometimes I wonder if she resents me for it"

"Trust me. You would know if she did. Hope you get your $50" Zarya replied. She left. Lena was alone, and she quickly began to feel it. She could hear the fire crackling a block of wood in the fireplace.

Lena turned to look at the fire and sighed. She hated how it looked, she remembered it all two well after the Tracer crash and the crash after that. The flames had been just outside her cockpit, and the smoke had filtered through. For a few terrifying moments, Lena had choked on dark, filthy smoke in blindness.

After the second crash, she had seen things that she did not understand. While in the place between reality and time, she had seen things that could only be speculated about, but Lena could take a decent guess. Memories.

One memory was of fire dancing beneath the feet of her ancestor and slowly choking the life out of an innocent woman in the middle ages. Her arms were broken, her head heavy and her blood trickling down her temples. For a brief moment, she felt the heat and smoke and the relief, as the snow and ash mixed in the sky. Lena often had nightmares of that one.

Another memory was of books burning before Lena's eyes. The head through which she saw had their head cast down by cruel students as they burnt the books that were once held in regard. The fires burnt the knowledge, the words of people long ago burnt in a moment of bigotry and racial prejudice, and the advent of Nazism. Lena at least knew that he would survive. He would escape to France, and then onto England, where even there the Nazis would throw fire.

It had come full circle, the oldest one Lena had seen had come from England.

Lena only had glimpses of the oldest ones life. But she could guess from the emotions and hatred and fear that she felt for a brief second as she reached out, that she had the worst of the lot. Lena had witnessed the burning of the oldest's house, and how she was taken to Denmark by a scabby, bearded brute who had slaughtered her husband and raped her. The next few years in thrall to him would produce the "Witch", the Socialist, and eventually Lena. The socialist would marry in England to a house maid, and the rest of Lena's patrilineal line would be in Old Blighty. Her matrilineal line; as far as Lena could tell, had no one live further south than Kent, or further North then Birmingham apart for one errant Welshman. In a tiny moment she had seen all their lives, but their was one thing that bound her to the Eldest, the "Witch" and The Socialist. Fire.

Lena could smell it now, Smoke filling her mouth, her nose, her throat. Blackening her lungs and scorching her tounge. Standing up in a daze, she made for the door. She needed cold, yes. Cold would get rid of the smoke. The choking black and the burning yellow ribbons now circling her neck. Making her way towards the door, mumbling in Old Norse. She needed the cold. She needed to leave behind the stifling heat, leave the smoke for the cold, leave the house for the forest.

She stepped out into the minus 20 weather, with no coat, no protection and a hope to never return.