"Whoever said that loss gets easier with time was a liar. Here's what really happens: The spaces between the times you miss them grow longer. Then, when you do remember to miss them again, it's still with a stabbing pain to the heart. And you have guilt. Guilt because it's been too long since you missed them last." - Kristin O'Donnell Tubb
When Brigitte turns up on his doorstep that evening, Reinhardt can tell something is off. It may be in the way she is avoiding his gaze, or how her smile doesn't quite meet her eyes. He puts his pad down, suspending his email to Artur and takes his feet from the bed.
"You mind if I talk to you about something?"
He waves a hand, inviting her inside. "Of course not."
She perches on the edge of his bed, and he moves to join her. The expression on her face is unusually somber. When she shivers, he chides himself for not realizing how cold it is. He strips the navy blanket off his bed and wraps it around her shoulders. Gratefully she accepts it, pulling its fuzzy edges tight to her.
She shows no sign of speaking, despite her question. Still, he does not press her. Instead he pulls her to him, tipping her against his side to share his warmth. That seems to do it; he can feel her clear her throat.
"So, um…" she begins, speaking against his ribs. "Have you ever felt weird after a mission?"
The question is not unexpected, even if the phrasing leaves something to be desired. Still, he knows exactly what she means.
"Weird in what way?" he says, just for clarification.
She shivers against him, and holds her more tightly. He considers pulling back the bedcovers and tucking her inside.
"I dunno. I'm not very good at explaining it." She takes a deep breath. "I guess sometimes I've been feeling like the world isn't...real? Like I'm dreaming, and when I wake up I'll still be in the reactor."
Reinhardt looks down to see her tucking her nose under the blanket. "It sounds dumb, I know." Her voice is muffled, filtering through the thick sherpa.
"It does not sound dumb," he says, squeezing the arm around her in a gentle rebuke. "Do not disparage yourself." He pauses, considering her words. "Are you having nightmares?"
Immediately she shakes her head. "No, no nightmares. Just that weird feeling." Brigitte hunches under the blanket, and this time Reinhardt does decide to act.
He pulls back the covers from the side of the bed and props his pillows against the wall, creating a makeshift sofa. "Here," he says, lifting the bedcover in invitation. He joins her, fluffing the comforter over them both. Then he pauses, thinking of how to start.
"What you are feeling is not unexpected," he begins. "It...happens. The danger we are in, the things we see...the mind can not always guard against it. These experiences can have a lasting impact." He stops to gather his thoughts. He is not eloquent when it comes to delicate matters such as this.
Brigitte spares him an awkwardly long pause by asking another question. "Have you felt something like this then?"
A silver coin flips through the air, and he catches it deftly.
"I have been called, I must answer."
He feels a curious twist in his stomach. A bittersweet ache as an ancient well of pain opens, spilling both hurt and fondness from its depths. Oh yes, he knows.
He thinks about telling her about when he first arrived at Watchpoint Italy, fresh out of Eichenwald and hollowed by the loss of Balderich. How he drifted for weeks on a fog of emptiness and confusion. About the nightmares. About the endless thoughts of 'what if'. What if he hadn't engaged that OR-14. What if he had reacted faster. What if he had refused to leave Balderich's side.
How more than once, he wished it had been him who died.
He settles for condensing it down to "Yes."
"How did you get back to feeling normal?"
Ah, isn't that the question he wishes he had an eloquent response for? How? He had plenty of help. Usually in the form of Amari's frank conversations. She had helped him to sublimate his feelings into a drive to improve himself, to become stronger and honor Balderich's memory. Ana, lend me your voice.
"I had someone to talk to," he says. "She listened. She helped me untangle the feelings I was having by pointing out the errors in my thoughts. She also gave me, ah, some exercises to do." Exercises? More like channeling your feelings through your hammer, Amari smirks.
"Exercises?" Brigitte looks up at him, hopeful. "Lúcio told me how he used his music to deal with it."
She had talked to Lúcio then, hmm?
"He is right. Creative pursuits can be very helpful," he agrees. He himself had tried a number of things before discovering cooking.
"He also said talking about it helped him." She folds her fingers together, twisting them into the covers. "He said I should talk to you."
"Lúcio is very wise. If you have people to help support you through this, recovery can be much easier."
"Bottling these feelings up is a recipe for an explosion," Amari says flatly. She guides his fists down, away from his hair where his fingers have knotted like iron bars. "Talk to me, Wilhelm."
Reinhardt looks down at Brigitte, whose fingers are still twisted nervously. "Have you found something that is helping you?"
More furtive movement. She's looking away from him towards the opposite wall, as if there is something interesting carved into the gray stone.
"I think so. Talking with Lúcio helped, and I've been working on some smithing projects, and…"
The wringing stops.
"...spending time with you."
It's clear that she expects some kind of reaction from him. The way she's gone still is reminiscent of an animal on high alert.
"With me, eh?" He sweeps and arm over her again, flexing so that she falls against him. "Am I so great a distraction?" He's joking lightly, trying to ease some of the tension she's holding. It works. She smacks a hand against his stomach, but with no real force.
"You're ridiculous, that's what you are."
It's earned him a smile though. She turns up to meet his gaze, though after a moment her eyes dart back down.
"But, what I mean is - it helps. Things feel a little more real when we're sparring, and lifting and cooking. Doing stuff."
Mentorship. He knows it. Amari taking him under her wing had helped more than he could ever say. First him, then Jesse; she had truly been the team's mother.
"It is true, simply returning to normal activities can help give you a sense of stability," Reinhardt acknowledges. "Routines help. And, time." And isn't that really what it comes down to, in the end? Time? Letting the mind scar over those hurts?
"Brigitte...one thing you must know is that recovery is not instant. You may not feel noticeably better today. Or even tomorrow. Some days you may feel worse; it is as much a process of dealing with slipping backward, as it is stepping forward. But you can do it."
She sighs, one small quavering note of distress. "How long?"
Reinhardt squeezes her against him again. "I cannot say. It is different for everyone." He rubs a hand along her arm, trying to soothe her. "I would say already you are moving in the right direction. I myself did not speak to anyone voluntarily at first; Amari had to pull it out of me."
Her face contorts in confusion. "The sniper?"
Ah, yes. He's never really told her what Ana Amari meant to him. What she did for him. Only stories of her legendary shooting skills, her keen mind. Her bravery.
He begins to talk.
By the time he finally falls silent, the digital display on the wall reads half-past nine; he's been talking for almost forty-five minutes. Brigitte reclines against him, loose-limbed and warm. She had finally relaxed as his stories unfolded.
"Wow. I never knew," she says. "She sounded really special to you." Her eyes hold a soft sort of wonder. "I wish I had gotten to meet her."
"I wish that too," he admits. He thinks Amari would have liked her. She had teased him enough in years past about shaping his goddaughter into his miniature, much to Torbjörn's chagrin.
Brigitte sighs quietly. Then she surprises him by slapping a hand down on his thigh.
"Well, I'm glad I talked to you." Her tone is brighter, more business-like. "I think I have a good idea of how to work on myself now." She gives him a smile, and this time it meets her eyes. "I think I've had enough of wallowing in my feelings for today. Wanna watch a movie?"
And just like that, Brigitte closes the book on her emotions. He doesn't mind. There is only so much they can process in one day, and he thinks they've had a very productive talk. More importantly, he thinks she knows she can talk to him if she needs something.
"Fine," he says. "What do you want to watch?"
As they set to debating the merits of romance versus true crime films, he feels that bittersweet twist in his chest again. How nice it would have been, to protect Brigitte from these realizations. To spare her from the heartache of knowing how fragile life is. How transient. He should have known he couldn't protect her forever.
Still, he feels a kernel of warmth inside. She came to him. He knows Brigitte trusts him, but this is undeniable proof: he has her confidence.
And he will do anything to keep it.
As they slide into mid-November and training resumes, Reinhardt keeps a close eye on Brigitte. Now that he knows of her troubles he is keen to do what he can to help her, and if spending time with him is part of it, well, it is certainly not a burden.
They continue their training, with an occasional appearance from Lucio. Their usual once-weekly movie nights increase to bi-weekly. She still disappears to her workshop regularly, so he is not worried about her becoming overly dependent on him.
"How are you feeling?" becomes a routine question. Though there are no more of the frank heart-to-hearts of the previous weeks, it feels like a new avenue of friendship has been opened to them. He had never expected to have such closeness with his goddaughter, but he cherishes it all the same.
They find a new normal. Winston devises new sim routines, Torbjörn and Brigitte assist in developing a newer, hardier type of 'bot to more closely resemble real combat. McCree undergoes minor surgery to remove a bone fragment that is pressing on one of his nerves, and is out of sims for a week. He spends his free time heckling them from the sidelines. Hanzo threatens to shoot him, and he relocates so that he can continue heckling them over the intercom. When he is well enough to return, at some point during his first sim back his hat disappears. It reappears later with two holes in the crown that line up perfectly.
It's their new normal.
One Wednesday afternoon in the last week of November, something changes. Just before sims are about to kick off, Winston stops, a hand at his ear. It's a position Reinhardt knows well; Athena is speaking to him. He turns to face them.
"We have a visitor."
They follow him en-mass to the hangar. It's the only entry point to the Watchpoint by air or by land, but there's no sign of an aircraft landing on the helipad. Torbjörn opens the door to the tunnel out and when they make their way to the other end, the slate-gray walls part to reveal a short woman in a powder-blue parka.
At least, Reinhardt thinks its a woman. The round swell of her hips seems to give that away, but the hood of the parka is pulled up and cinched against the cold. A white ruff of fur disguises most of her face, but he gets the impression of brown bangs and wide, upturned eyes before Winston lopes forward to greet her.
"Winston!" The strange woman throws her arms around his neck in greeting, and he returns the embrace with a gentle pat on the back. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you. It's been so long!"
"It has," he agrees. He turns to see the confused, waiting crowd behind him. "Uh, let's get you out of the cold, okay?" He ushers her inside, punching the button that lowers the door. "Everyone, this is -"
"Hiya, everyone!" The woman interrupts him, bursting with excitement. As the door closes behind her she pulls down her hood revealing a round, friendly face. "I'm Mei-Ling Zhou!"
Mei-Ling Zhou, or "just Mei" is the climatologist Winston had mentioned many weeks ago. He had even sent out an email with a link to her blog, which Reinhardt had never investigated. She had been detailing her foray into other abandon ecopoints and Watchpoints in Asia and Europe, he remembers.
Winston decides to forego their sim training today, much to the chagrin of Hanzo. He does not seem to care much about their new addition, though he deigns to stay when they gather in the mess hall at the longest table. Winston wants to hear firsthand of her adventures.
Reinhardt stands in the kitchen, stirring cocoa powder, vanilla, and sugar into a pot of heating milk. He is making hot chocolate for everyone, a practice that has become common in these cold months. The rock of Gibraltar is unforgivingly cold, especially in the mess hall. The enormous stone room does not lend itself well to heating. Hot cocoa at least gives them something warm to clutch while they listen.
Brigitte stands next to him, setting out mugs. She puts down ten at first, then pauses.
"Does Genji drink hot chocolate?" she whispers.
Reinhardt shakes his head. "He prefers not to remove his visor. But he may appreciate the gesture all the same."
He ladles portions of the steaming drink into the mugs, and together he and Brigitte serve their companions. Mei takes hers with a beaming smile and hardly an interruption in the flow of her chatter.
"-few weeks I spent near Mount Logan, just testing out the endothermic blaster. I wanted a place where I couldn't...well, where it wouldn't affect people. Once I figured out its capabilities I parsed through some of the data to find geographic regions of the anomaly that were closer to the old stations, and visit them on-"
She seems very nice. Reinhardt listens with interest as she describes visiting an outpost in Canada. All the usual security protocols had failed, but for the locks on the doors which she had frozen off.
"It didn't look like anyone had been there since the shutdown. Power was out to everything, no running water. I just took the data off the hard drives-"
He wonders how many of the old outposts still function. How many of them still contain valuable data. Perhaps it was something they should've considered before now; any enterprising agency with nefarious intents could ferret the old ecopoints out as Mei had.
Mei talks, and they listen. Occasionally Winston interrupts with a question. The cocoa dwindles.
"I was going to make my way through Asia next. There's definitely some atmospheric fluctuations over Ürümqi, but I decided I would stop in and say hi on my way!" she finishes in a rush. Until then her chocolate hadn't been touched, but she slurps it now. When she emerges from her mug her glasses have fogged. The cocoa is still warm enough to steam.
"Oh - how rude of me! I haven't asked about any of you! I know Winston, but..." She trails off, embarrassed.
Genji is the first to volunteer, beginning a train of introductions that move clockwise around the table. When it is Reinhardt's turn, Mei gasps.
"Oh, I've heard about you! You're the knight!" Mei gushes, nearly slopping her cocoa over the rim of her mug.
Reinhardt smiles. His reputation precedes him. "Yes, I am. And this is my squire, Brigitte." He gestures to his left, where Brigitte sits.
"Yeah, I keep his armor from falling apart," Brigitte jokes.
"Well, it's nice to meet you both. I have a squire too, I guess," Mei giggles. "I forgot to introduce him. Snowball!"
From the canister on her back, something moves. There's a whirring sound, and then up over Mei's shoulder pops a little drone. It's modeled in the form of the Asian droids, a small, pixel-style display bearing two round, blue eyes. It trills at them, a sound that rises in pitch, questioning.
"Snowball, say hi to everyone!"
The drone sweeps around them, the flaps on its body rising and falling like the ears of an excited elephant. When Winston holds up a curious palm, it lights there.
"What is it?" Reinhardt thinks he can see a gleam behind Winston's glasses, and plans to make his exit.
Lena seems to have the same thought.
"Hey, Mei! Do you want to pick out a room?" She gestures to the huge backpack that Mei had carried in with her. "We can put your stuff in there."
"Oh, sure!" Mei turns her head to Winston, who is still cradling Snowball. "If you want I can show you the data Snowball collected. He takes samples from different layers of-"
Reinhardt watches them go with a wave, the remaining agents stay behind to help him gather up the mugs.
"So, uh. No sims today. Want an extra long sparring session?" Brigitte finishes loading up their rinsed glasses and shuts the dishwasher.
Over her shoulder, Angela tsks. "You two be careful now. Don't overdo it!" she cautions. Perhaps she is remembering the last time that happened, when Brigitte had complained of sore muscles for three days.
"We won't!" Brigitte looks around, a wide smile curling her lips. "Anyone else want to join? We're grappling today."
"I can't believe no one wanted to join," Brigtte grumbles as they square off across the mat. "I'm not that scary."
"Perhaps it is not you they were afraid of."
Reinhardt circles to his left, looking for an opening. Brigitte begins to mirror him, so that the space between them remains constant.
"What, you think they're afraid to fight you?" Brigitte blows air out through her lips, disbelieving. "Pffff."
"Why, you-!"
Reinhardt feints to his right then lunges, intent on wrapping up his cheeky squire but she dances out of his grasp. They go back to circling.
"Though, I'm pretty sure Genji almost took me up on it. I think he was interested." She drops her guard completely, feigning a thoughtful pose. It's meant to bait him, but he won't fall for it so easily.
Next it is Brigitte who attacks. She ducks towards him, keeping her body low as she goes for a takedown. It's a technique that might work on an attacker without his arm span. Unfortunately for her, it's all too easy for him to drop to his knees before she can get to him.
With a sweep of his arm he takes out her legs, driving his shoulder forward and down into the ground. In a flash he has her trapped in a mount, and he can feel her knees move on either side of him as she prepares to roll him. Before she can, he grapevines her. Now she cannot raise her hips.
"Not cool," she gasps as his weight presses down. "I almost had the transition!"
"Do you know what to do from here?"
"Uh, maybe?" Suddenly her hands are at his waist, scrabbling at his tank top as she goes for a ticklish spot.
"Poor technique!" he admonishes her, barely stopping himself from instinctively squirming away. "You can't count on this working on an enemy!"
"Yeah, well, but I also don't think I'll ever actually fight a Talon goon who knows jiu jitsu either."
Reinhardt releases the grapevine, transitioning to an easier escape. "Try your escape now,"
She does, bending her knee up and trapping his right foot with the inside of her ankle. With a tight hold on his right arm she lifts her hips and rolls to her left, winding up in his guard.
"Better?" She traps his arms as she says this, a loose hold that he could break easily.
"Better, but I had you before. Perhaps we should work on the speed of your reaction to a mount."
Brigitte pouts from between his thighs, then relents. "Fine. But you have to show me how to get out of that ankle-lock thing."
The next two hours of grappling are productive. By the end of it Brigitte is able to break his mounts quickly and instinctively. She sprawls on the mats when he calls it a day, letting her auburn hair fan out onto the black mat.
"Oh man, I'm going to feel that tomorrow!"
She groans and pats her abdomen. Reinhardt can feel it too; though it is much easier for him to roll her, the constant twisting of his core is not something he is used to.
"Do not complain in front of Angela, or she will have both our hides."
He fetches the bottle of cleaning spray and a rag and begins to spray down the mat, pointedly avoiding the spot that Brigitte lays. After a few long seconds she raises her arms up, and he helps her to her feet.
Together they clean the mats and plot what to make for dinner. Ever since they returned from Russia, Brigitte has taken an active interest in learning to cook. Or perhaps he should say learning to bake. She has far more interest in crafting the food she loves to eat above everything else.
"I want to try to make a 'Welcome' cake for Mei," she says as they head towards the kitchen. Reinhardt thinks tonight he may make stir fry again. It is easy, and there are plenty of vegetables to use up.
"That is a nice sentiment. What sort of frosting were you thinking? And what flavor of cake?"
Brigitte freezes, then whips out her pad. He laughs as she scrolls through a search engine, reading about the different varieties of frosting.
"...maybe I'll just make cookies instead."
Cookies are good. She's gotten much better at them with each subsequent attempt.
Kitchen time has become a sort of dance for them. They work in harmony, pulling the required ingredients, preparing and chopping vegetables, sauteing meat, fetching seasonings. Brigitte has become quite adept at recognizing what he needs next and getting it for him before he even has to ask. She is always conscientious of his blind side, tapping him on the arm when she's in his blind spot. It's nice. He hasn't had this sort of effortless nonverbal communication with anyone in quite some time, except perhaps Torbjörn. Back in the day they had been very good at communicating across the battlefield.
While the stir fry begins sizzling in the wok, Brigitte gathers her baking supplies. From the way she moves, Reinhardt knows that she's using a recipe committed to heart. When he sees her grab the chocolate chips, he knows it is.
"Everybody likes chocolate chip cookies, right?" she says, laying out her bowls and measuring cups.
"I am sure she will appreciate any gesture."
The smell of the stir fry begins to attract attention. McCree is the first to arrive, dutifully heading to lay out plates and silverware. By the time stir fry is done, Brigitte has her first round of cookies in the oven.
Over the next half-hour the rest of the agents arrive, and Brigitte hustles to get her cookies finished in time.
"Oh man, I didn't think this through!"
Reinhardt turns to see her trying to spell out 'Welcome' with the cookies on the cookie sheet, but the cookies are far too large and the sheet too small. 'We' is all that fits. She opts instead to pile the finished product on one sheet, and when Mei and Winston arrive to dinner she presents it to Mei with a cheerful "Welcome to Gibraltar!"
"See, I told you she would appreciate it," Reinhardt mutters in Brigitte's ear as Mei thanks her profusely and takes two cookies immediately.
Dinner is a much louder affair than normal. Mei's happy chatter fills the room; she seems to have a kind word for everyone, and about everything. She oohs and ahhs over Reinhardt's cooking ("You do this every night? Maybe I will stay a little longer…") to the ambiance ("So, team dinners are a regular thing? That's so cool!") to McCree's outfit. It makes him just that more aware of how lonely she must have been. Waking up to find all her friends and colleagues dead? That is his own personal nightmare.
The warmth in the Watchpoint is palpable tonight. He hates to be the one to ruin it, but he's only just remembered something. He needs to tell the team of what Zarya had mentioned to him in Russia. The assassination attempt. He had held off, at first not wanting to disturb Brigitte's emotional state, then outright forgotten about it. But now…
"Winston." Reinhardt pulls him aside as Winston heads for the tray of cookies. "I have something I must tell you about. Something everyone needs to know."
He gives Winston a quick rundown of the situation, voice lowered as to not be overheard. Telling them will come soon, but he knows that Winston may want to do his own deep dive for more information before announcing everything to the group at large. There may yet be more data that Reinhardt himself does not have access to.
"That happened pretty recently," Winston acknowledges. He holds a cookie delicately between two fingers, but does not eat it. "And I definitely didn't see anything about that in the news." The hand not holding the cookie rubs at his chin thoughtfully. "Thanks for telling me. I need to see what I can find out about this first, if that's okay."
"Perfectly fine," Reinhardt agrees.
"I'll probably call a meeting within the week. This just feels like...it feels like another piece in a puzzle I can't solve." Winston absentmindedly picks up another cookie, stacking it with the other.
"I know what you mean." Reinhardt takes a cookie for himself. "Talon has been very active as of late. I think they are planning something big."
"Yeah. I think so too" Winston sighs. "We need to figure it out. Before whatever it is happens."
It's a somber thought. One that sticks with Reinhardt long after Winston departs. He is a bit quieter through dessert, and a bit distracted during the movie following, though Brigitte doesn't notice it. Perhaps his mood has unconsciously telegraphed to her, because the following morning she herself seems a bit distracted. Her moods have been a bit more mercurial ever since they came back. He pays it no mind.
Much later he will think that perhaps he should have.