A/N: A messy chapter for messy feelings.
I've been making references to "A Mother's Diary" throughout this story, but this chapter mentions a lot from the chapter "Fareeha and the Poster" and the one-shot "Fareeha the Teenager". This chapter should be readable without context, but there's a lot more meaning if you've read them. It also doesn't hurt to read Pharah's official comic and watch Ana's origin story.
Fareeha wasn't herself.
Maybe it was because the Overwatch team had scanned the area and detected anti-air units before their mission, stranding Fareeha on the ground. But the woman had had plenty of experience on the ground before she joined Helix Security International, so surely that couldn't have been it.
The members of the team who had been selected for the mission were positioned under cover, watching the choke point that the new batch of omnics infected with a God Program was due to storm through. Bastion was at the centre of the strategy, and Fareeha and Aleksandra accompanied it. Angela was mostly just there to keep Aleksandra from turning on Bastion. They had covered Bastion with shrubbery until the only part of it that could be seen was the dark circle of the barrel of its gun.
Normally, during the calm before battle, Fareeha was physically tense but mentally focused. But for the whole day, Fareeha looked distracted. When Fareeha kept the team waiting in the hangar, Angela offered to look for her. She found her on the roof, staring at the sky with a dazed look on her face. She briefly snapped out of it when Angela asked if she was alright, and insisted on going on the mission.
As they waited for the omnics, Angela kept on throwing concerned looks at Fareeha, and every time, there was that glassy-eyed stare at nothing in particular. She wanted to ask what was wrong, but now wasn't the right time to do it.
Angela heard Aleksandra hold her breath as the first of the omnics started to show. She saw the red lights of the omnics' eyes flashing, indicating hostility, and confirming that these were the omnics they were waiting for. Angela felt sorry for them, wondering if there was some way to erase the virus that controlled their minds.
The omnics moved packed tightly together, as if they were more of one being than many. A dull drone filled the air, like millions of bees on alert for honey snatchers. Angela waited for Fareeha to issue the command to open fire.
She counted the number of breaths Aleksandra made as she waited.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
The omnics were moving fast, and if they waited any longer, they would lose their advantageous position.
Angela crawled a few metres on her belly, drew her staff and poked the bottom of Fareeha's boot with it. She saw Fareeha's head jerk, and she responded immediately.
"Fire!" she ordered.
Bastion did not hesitate at all as it spewed forth bullets. Fareeha and Aleksandra lay on either side of Bastion, shooting their projectiles at the omnics. Bastion would have made short work of the omnics if they were lined up conveniently, but they had already advanced past the bottleneck and had issued the command to spread out.
"Dang", said Fareeha, and Angela heard Fareeha's jump jets project her upwards.
"Wait!" yelled Angela after her, but it was too late. Fareeha had already given away their position and made herself as vulnerable as a naked baby. "Zarya! Pharah needs a shield!"
Aleksandra was forced to stop shooting at the omnics that were starting to surround them on both sides, and Angela could hear the sound of her particle cannon working on gathering the energy it needed to project a barrier far enough to reach Fareeha.
"Rocket barrage incom-ahhh!" Angela watched in dismay as Fareeha was shot down from the sky. Fortunately, her Raptora suit was still functioning, and Fareeha dropped onto the roof of a building, where she used her height advantage to continue launching rockets at the enemy.
Angela swore and unloaded her pistol at an omnic trying to climb up the side of the building Fareeha was on. She didn't care if she should be hiding in the back-lines. She was going to put an end to this and they were going to be home in time for dinner.
Fareeha leaned heavily on Aleksandra, trusting her to support the weight off an injured leg, where armour-piercing bullets had made ugly work out of her calf. Her armour was riddled was dents, but it wasn't clear how much had gotten through.
"Take off all your armour", commanded Angela as soon as they got on the jet.
"It's just a scratch", Fareeha mumbled to Angela. "It's nothing, really."
"And yet you came running to me for actual scratches that you inflicted upon yourself." Fareeha's cheeks darkened. "I told you a long time ago to never get used to saying that to me. I'll hold you to the same standard now as I did then."
Fareeha obeyed Angela, and released several latches on her suit, allowing her to take apart her suit piece-by-piece. Like Angela's suit, it was a pain to put on, but was designed to come off easily in case they needed to shed weight quickly for whatever reason. Angela noted the way Fareeha avoided using her left arm.
By the time Fareeha was stripped down to the black, heat-repelling flight suit that Angela also wore, Angela had already sanitized herself and her equipment.
She injected a local anaesthetic into Fareeha's leg, and cleaned her wound. The skin was too torn to stitch cleanly, but the wound wasn't that deep either. She did what she could for the cleanest parts of the injury, and bandaged the rest up.
When she finished her work, Angela noticed a small rip in the fabric on Fareeha's shoulder. Still fuming at Fareeha's compulsive behaviour, and because a heat-repelling suit lost most of its functionality after a rip anyway, Angela wormed her fingers into the hole, and jerked the material apart, tearing a massive hole.
The action exposed a quarter of Fareeha's torso, and the soldier gasped. She instinctively covered her breasts with her right arm, even though she still had a bra on underneath.
Angela felt up the heavily-bruised skin, and pressed gently on specific points. Upon hearing Fareeha sucking in air between her teeth, she grabbed the side of Fareeha's shoulder with one hand. Using her other hand, Angela pushed on Fareeha's chest until Fareeha's back was pressed against the wall of the jet.
"Were you going to tell me you had dislocated your shoulder, or were you just going to let it dangle at your side for the rest of your life?"
"I'm sorry… I…"
"Relax", warned Angela, and swiftly jerked the ball of Fareeha's humerus back into its joint socket.
Fareeha sighed her relief, and Angela wanted to chide Fareeha so badly, but she knew Fareeha wouldn't have flown at all if she had acted like her usual self. Instead, she exhaled her frustration, leaned into Fareeha's good shoulder, and clutched the dog tags that dangled over Fareeha's chest. She took a good moment to inhale the heavy scent of sweat and fuel. She knew that she should order Fareeha to see Zenyatta, whose one of greatest assets to Overwatch was to help members through trauma and emotional unrest, but she didn't want to.
"Please Fareeha. Talk to me. Whenever. I'll listen, I promise."
"I know", said Fareeha.
A week later, someone walked into one of Angela's experiment rooms, just as Angela stuck a needle into an unconscious mouse's still-beating heart.
Although Angela spent the day in the infirmary, by midnight most people were in bed, and Angela could sneak in a few hours conducting experiments in the lab. MeiLing had retired earlier than usual, probably taking advantage of the time to invite Aleksandra to her room.
Everyone knew that the experiment rooms were off-limits unless there was an emergency, so Angela was instantly anxious to see who had entered, until she smelled Fareeha's clean scent.
"What are you doing?" asked Fareeha.
"I'm performing a perfusion. I need this mouse's brain for an experiment, but I have to make sure that there's no blood in it. I'm using the mouse's heart to pump this solution around the body and flush out the mouse's blood.
"That seems a little… cruel."
"Don't worry, the mouse is knocked out cold, and doesn't feel anything."
Angela finished the task, and pulled out a little device.
"Is that a mini-guillotine?"
"Yes, despite advances in technology, "primitive" techniques still do their jobs as well as ever. You might not want to watch this."
"Angela, I've killed people, I think I can handle a mouse… oh."
Angela had pulled a lever, and the mouse's head popped right off.
"You probably won't want to watch me take out the brain."
Fareeha heeded Angela's advice this time, and Angela cut open the mouse's skull and carefully used her forceps to transfer the brain to a tube.
"Is there something wrong?" asked Angela.
"Not really."
Angela had wanted to do a little bit more that night, but knew that Fareeha was lying and had something to talk to her about. So she decided to freeze the brain and start cleaning up. She would wait for Fareeha until she was ready.
"I'm surprised you can take a life so easily", said Fareeha.
"It's not that hard. I don't see life itself as intrinsically valuable."
This clearly surprised Fareeha.
"Then why do you fight so hard to save so many lives? Even for the lives of the people and omnics that the rest of us are trying to kill?"
Fareeha was staring at Angela hard, and Angela knew Fareeha was testing her, to see if she was worthy of her secret.
"Fareeha, do you believe in life after death?"
"No, I don't."
"Neither do I. That begs the question, why bother doing any of this, if it doesn't matter after we're dead? We're not going to remember." Fareeha opened her mouth to say something, but Angela interrupted. "Hold on. I've never said this aloud so I need to think about what I'm trying to say."
Fareeha waited.
"It isn't my goal to save lives per se. I fight for ideals, not people. I want to live in a world without pain and suffering. I can do research and contribute to medicine so more deaths become preventable. However, even though I could save more lives if, for example, I found a cure for cancer, I also need to be a doctor so I can help people at an individual level. It makes me feel like I'm actually making an impact. Saving lives is a just a by-product when working towards what I believe in. So is taking the lives of mice for research."
Angela drained the pan of mouse blood she had collected.
"Have you ever felt bad about the people you couldn't save?"
"I have never lost a single patient that I got to operate on", said Angela proudly. "Though, I admit that some people have come out less recognizably human."
"I can't understand why you care so much about this if you think it doesn't matter after you die."
"Because I'm not a robot, Fareeha. I don't operate purely on logic and facts. It just comes down the fact that I enjoy living, and I assume the same for everybody else. And I don't want anybody to suffer the way I have."
Fareeha started to react to something Angela said, but Angela could tell that the other woman was holding something back. She decided to proceed cautiously.
"To be clear, I don't care about actually achieving my goals. I know that no matter how hard I try, the world will barely feel my contribution to it. No matter how many lives I save, thousands die every day of preventable causes. It's pointless to stress about it. The reason why I even bother trying to do anything is because it makes me feel good; it gives me meaning. Life may not be intrinsically valuable, but that doesn't mean you can't give it value. To me, life isn't about getting to the end goal, it's about the journey."
Fareeha had that glassy look in her eyes again, and Angela didn't know if she should continue or not. There was something about Fareeha that made her spill more than she planned to, and she certainly had never talked about her motives to anybody else before. They had just assumed that she was a perfect, benevolent being that wanted to help everyone. She knew she said something right, but there were so many things she said that could have triggered Fareeha's deep thinking.
"The journey isn't always a smooth ride, is it?" said Fareeha finally.
"No, but that's not a bad thing."
"Once when I was a kid, you told me about how if you were broken, you don't have to stay broken. And even if you come out with scars, it's not a good or bad thing. You're just different."
Angela was surprised that Fareeha still remembered the conversation. It had been the first time Angela had unloaded onto Fareeha, well, anybody, really. She hadn't said it explicitly, but she had been talking about how she came to terms with losing her parents. She wondered if Fareeha, as just a child, had picked up on it.
It wasn't that her teammates never asked; Angela just wasn't interested in talking about herself. But as a child, there was nothing Fareeha liked more than listening to the adults tell stories. She could go hours without saying a word. The young Fareeha's shy, quiet presence made it easy to talk to her. Perhaps the teenage Angela saw a likeliness of herself in her, a girl who never had any friends her age.
"So, I shouldn't be scared, right?" continued Fareeha. "Of things that might break me?"
"Fareeha", said Angela, grabbing the other woman's shoulder and squeezing it. "What's wrong?"
"I have a favour to ask", said Fareeha with an achingly soft voice. Angela couldn't help but stare at the way Fareeha's arms wrapped around her body, as if she were shrinking upon herself.
"What do you need?" replied Angela.
"I. Well. First I need to tell you something, but you have to promise to keep it a secret for now."
"I promise. I'm good at keeping things to myself."
"Ok. Well, you see. My mother is alive."
Angela stifled her gasp with her hand.
"Are you sure? I mean, I never wanted to believe it because we never found Ana's body, and... This is great! I mean, it's definitely a shock, and I'm so…" Angela cut herself off when she saw the way Fareeha looked almost relieved that Angela had been rambling. As if the longer she rambled, the less Fareeha would have to talk. It took all of Angela's willpower to keep herself from asking questions. "I'm sorry. Go on."
Fareeha flinched, but continued. "She sent me letters. The first one was when she disappeared, telling me she was ok. Then I didn't hear from her again until five months ago, when she explained what happened and why she just left. I'm an adult, so I understand why she did what she did. I've been there too. I know she loves me, but… but… It's so hard."
Fareeha blinked rapidly, and her hand clenched and unclenched, until Angela decided to keep it still by sliding her hand in hers and holding it open.
"It's ok, Fareeha", said Angela softly. Her voice encouraged Fareeha to keep talking.
"I got another letter from her a week ago. She wants to come back to Overwatch. But she wants to meet with me first, you know, because I'm her daughter and all." Fareeha took a deep breath and let it go slowly. "I don't want to see her."
"Fareeha…"
"That was a lie. I really want to see her. But it wasn't a lie! I don't want to see her at all! I don't know why, I just… it hurts Angela. It hurts so much."
Angela squeezed Fareeha's hand, not sure of what she should do or say, so she didn't say anything.
"I don't really have a choice. She's going to come back to Overwatch so I'll see her anyway, so I have to be an adult. I'm going to meet with her tonight. The favour I wanted from you… I mean, you don't have to do it if you don't want to. But can you please come with me?"
Tonight, thought Angela, doing her best to keep her hand from shaking. She was still reeling over the news that Ana was alive. She wasn't even sure what she was going to say to Ana. But it wasn't about her. Angela knew that Fareeha had more right to be uncertain and afraid.
"I'll come. When do we need to go?"
"I'm actually already late. But the place we're meeting is pretty close. My mother has been hiding out in a cave two kilometres away."
"She's been that close to us, ever since we came here?"
"Maybe. I found the letters I got from her on my pillow. I asked Athena about it. She said my mother was here! And the damn A.I. didn't tell anybody about it! I bet she led my mother right to my room! Twice!"
"I'm sure Ana told Athena not to tell unless asked", said Angela. "Now, let's go before Ana thinks you've given up on her."
Finding the cave was much harder than Angela expected. The watchpoint was surrounded by water on one side, and a dense cover of trees and shrubs on the other. There weren't any paths made by humans or large animals, so Angela followed Fareeha as she slowly ploughed a path for them. Angela held the flashlight as Fareeha followed the GPS coordinates Ana had left for her.
"I wish we could fly", mumbled Fareeha.
Angela didn't respond because she didn't need to. Fareeha's leg may have healed, but her suit was still in repair.
Angela and Fareeha didn't speak much as they walked. Angela was trying to figure out what she wanted to say to Ana, and she was sure Fareeha was doing the same.
When they finally arrived at right point, Angela didn't see anything. She didn't see a cave, and she didn't see Ana.
Angela noticed Fareeha anxiously twisting something blue in her hands.
"She left", croaked Fareeha.
At the sound of Fareeha's voice, leaves started to rustle. Angela turned around just in time to see a bush get pushed aside, and a woman climbing out of a hole. Angela gasped and wanted to say something, but slipped behind Fareeha so she wasn't standing between the two Amaris.
Ana Amari once had a magnificent mane of hair. The last time Angela saw her, Ana's hair was already greying. Now her hair was completely white, and she wore it in a braid that ran down her shoulder. She wore the wrinkles that she had earned through age proudly. They were trophies of having survived through so many years of fighting. She had a hood covering the hijiab she wore loosely, and although she had an eye patch that covered a large part of her face, the Eye of Ra she bore under her left eye made it clear as day that the woman was indeed Ana.
Both women were completely silent. They just stared at each other. Angela placed a warm hand on Fareeha's stiff back to let her know that she was still there to help if she needed it.
Fareeha raised her hand to her head in a salute and held it.
"Captain Amari", said Fareeha.
At first Ana was hesitant, but then she straightened her back and imitated Fareeha's gesture.
"Captain Amari", said Ana, with a hoarser voice than she used to have.
Angela laughed in that moment without meaning to. It was just like Ana to say something like that. It turned out that Angela's accidental outburst was exactly what the two needed to break the ice.
"You knew I was a captain at Helix Security International?" said Fareeha.
"Of course I knew", replied Ana, lowering her hand. "You are my daughter. I make it my business to know everything about you. But you should know that I have not been a captain for a long time."
When Fareeha didn't respond, Ana breathed deeply and glanced at Angela.
"You look good, Angela. I take it Fareeha would not have made it here without you?"
"I'm sorry, I mean… You look good too, I mean… Ahhh, please pretend I'm not here. You don't have to keep using English for my sake."
"No, I want to", said Fareeha, and Angela's heart broke for Fareeha. English was much more impersonal for Fareeha. It made it easier for her handle the situation. Unfortunately for Fareeha, Ana picked up on this too. When Ana started speaking in Arabic, Angela reached for Fareeha's hand and held it tightly. Fareeha would later fill in the parts Angela didn't understand.
"I know it's hard for you, habibti…"
"Don't call me that", interrupted Fareeha, grinding her teeth. She squeezed Angela's hand so hard, Angela was worried she would break it.
"I know I haven't been the best mother to you…"
"Stop."
"Please, Fareeha. Please, I love you so much…"
"Stop", said Fareeha in Arabic.
And Ana stopped, not because she wanted to, or because Fareeha told her to, but because tears cascaded down her cheeks. She covered her face, and shook her head, as if she had been afraid that this would happen.
Angela couldn't guess at what was going through Fareeha's head, as the taller woman stiffened even more and clutched Angela's hand even harder. Fareeha was no doubt uncomfortable at watching the woman she had admired for so long break down in front of her. The woman that had disappeared and stopped contacting her. The woman that was her mother.
"I understand how you felt", started Fareeha slowly in English, weighing each word before letting it go. "I used to ask myself, "the man or the mission"? For a long time, I thought the mission trumped the man in importance. I took lives without questioning it. I accepted my teammates' deaths when they happened. I lost so many before I understood that every time I lost a member of my team, I lost a family member. After I fought for so many years I understood that feeling that no matter how many battles you fight, no matter how many people you kill, there will always be another person's war to fight. So I decided to fight for myself. To fight to protect my family. To fight for justice."
Fareeha squeezed Angela's hand again, and then loosened her hold.
"I'm glad", continued Fareeha. "When I read your letter, you said the same things. It felt like I had written it. But I'm mad at you… Not because you didn't contact me enough, but because you didn't give me a way to respond to you. I'm sorry I got mad at you when you didn't want me to join Overwatch. But I'm glad that I didn't listen to you, because if I did, I wouldn't have been able to understand what you went through."
Angela felt Fareeha's whole body unwind, as if she had been thinking about what her problem with Ana was for a long time, but the idea didn't become real until she articulated it out loud. It was then that Angela knew that everything was going to be alright.
"Here", said Fareeha in Arabic, holding out a blue beret to Ana. "This is yours. I've been taking care of it for you."
Ana choked on her tears and took her beret, letting her fingers linger on Fareeha's. Then, she took a brave step forward, put the beret on Fareeha's head, and held it there.
"I'm so proud of you. I missed you so much, habibti."
"Welcome back, Mama."
Ana broke down into a crying mess, and clung onto Fareeha's shoulders, else she melt into a puddle on the ground.
"I'm finally home", whispered Ana.
