It took Fareeha a while to open up; not that Ana was too hard-pressed for her daughter to do so. Any amount of time Fareeha could tolerate being in the same living space as her estranged mother was progress, small as they were. Most of their time together was spent circling around each other like two tigers, ears pricked and eyes sharp for any sudden moves from the other – proverbially, of course. Ana wagered Kamilah would disown them both if they started acting that weird. Well, Fareeha anyway. It wasn't as if Kamilah could disown her wife any more.
...A distressing thought.
Just when Ana was about to run into the city centre in an attempt at self-distraction, Fareeha sought her out in the study while Kamilah was out of the house for a grocery run. Ana knew this timing wasn't accidental – Fareeha probably wanted to keep their conversation out of Kamilah's earshot, especially given their track record of shouting matches in the past. It was an escalation which Ana was inclined to avoid, though things with Fareeha often spiraled out of her control.
The one thing which Captain Amari could never control – her own daughter. Maybe this was Kamilah's point all along? To not exert influence over that which she couldn't control – shouldn't control.
Ana's lips thinned as Fareeha stood before her, refusing to sit in the chair Ana had gestured towards. She watched her daughter with a neutral expression, feeling amused as it grew obvious that Fareeha wished to be anywhere but here. Then she burst into a short laugh when Fareeha reached into her shorts' pocket and pulled out a small slip of paper. Torn from a notebook, it looked like.
"Sorry, it's just–" Ana barked another laugh, then dragged a hand down her face, collecting herself. "Your mother did the same thing. Wrote down everything she wanted to say."
"Yeah?" Fareeha said flatly.
"Yeah. You really do take after your mama."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"Oh, it is. I would rather you be more like mama instead of me."
Fareeha frowned at that – and Ana had to bite down a sigh. Barely a minute in, and already she'd stepped on a toe. Lightly.
"I'm not–" Ana considered her words. "That's not what I meant. I mean, your mama has...better...personal qualities than me."
"I am well aware."
"Ouch," Ana chuckled, feeling a pang when Fareeha's expression didn't change. "Alright, point taken. Now let's see the charges you'd like to present to the court."
Fareeha's mouth twitched, unfolding the paper in her hands. She stared at it in silence, a frown etching deeper into her forehead the longer she stared, until finally her hand dropped to her side with a heavy sigh.
"You know...this won't work." Fareeha waved the piece of paper. "All of this? Every issue I had with you? Bringing them up won't do anything now."
"You think so?"
"What's the point? I mean, you're here now, and only now. Not back when I needed you more, when I was younger and needed my mother. Everything you could've done, you can't do now. I can list out every single thing I hated you for, but nothing you can do now will make it better."
"I agree," Ana said quietly, after a moment's pause. "All that I've done wrong, I've missed the chance to make it right. It's just like things with your mama. All she can do is tell me everything she resented me for, and I can do nothing to alleviate the pain she'd already suffered." She clasped her hands together.
"As we are now, the only way I can make amends is not to correct past mistakes, but to be better for both of you in the future. And if you don't tell me the problems you have with me, then there's no way for me to know how I can make things better between us. Makes sense?"
Fareeha pursed her lips, crossing her arms as she angled herself away from Ana. A well-hidden sulk her daughter had adopted when she'd grown older, and would appear when she hated that she agreed with something her ami said. It took a moment for the stiffness in her shoulders to relax, and she muttered, "Whatever."
Ana smiled faintly as Fareeha read her handwritten notes with a small, unhappy pout on her lips.
"You were almost never around," Fareeha started in a robot-like monotone. "And in the later years, you definitely were never around. You used to think giving us gifts could make up for that – and honestly I thought it was enough when I was younger – but in the end...I realised it wasn't. And then...yeah. That didn't cut it for me."
"You raised me and taught me to do good like all the other heroes in the Strike Team, in Overwatch, but whenever I tried to live up to that, you slammed down on my efforts and made me feel like I was doing wrong, that I was somehow shaming your name by doing so."
"To be fair, you did get arrested once," Ana cut in, and Fareeha snorted, rolling her eyes.
"There's that," Fareeha uttered, then went on. "I tried to make you – all of you: mama, the squad – proud by enlisting with the army, and that's when everything fell apart. I don't want to rehash all of that bullshit, but yeah. That's...that. And when Overwatch started getting dragged through the mud, I was getting dragged along with you back home. People started avoiding me, superiors stonewalled me and gave me deadend assignments. Whatever bad they thought you did, they thought I was benefitting from that too. Or even complicit, somehow. That's...kinda why I quit. I guess you did have your way in the end, and I fucking hate it still."
"And then you pretend to die, let us all grieve when you could've come back and made things better just by showing your face. But no, I guess that would've made your comeback all the less dramatic, wouldn't it?" Fareeha's tone was more cutting now, probably from treading on fresh wounds. "You had to leave us to–, to deal with everything that came after your 'death', and you stayed away when we needed you the most, even out of all those years you were out there playing hero."
"Fareeha–"
"You know, mama actually told me to think about myself first, not for her, when I talked to you? But no, I can't. Because even if she won't hold you accountable for the consequences of your playing dead, I will. Because I was here to watch my mother turn from a strong, fierce woman into–, into a husk of a person who could barely even take care of herself. Because I was here to watch her every minute of every day, because I was so fucking terrified that she would–, she would throw her own fucking life away for a wife who'd basically left her by herself all along anyway. I couldn't sleep, sometimes I couldn't even eat because I felt so–, so damned fucked up because–, agh!"
She kicked at the foot of the bookshelf she stood beside – lightly – and Ana raised her brows as Fareeha turned away to catch her breath.
Ana waited patiently, as Fareeha paced with her back to her mother, hands on her hips. "If you need to, we can continue this another time."
"No," Fareeha growled. "I don't want to do this again."
Ana tapped her fingers together. "You know, if I wasn't afraid of mama finding us, I'd suggest some sparring to work out that frustration."
Fareeha snorted. "I'd kick your ass all over the mat."
"Not if I kick yours first."
Another snort – an odd one, which Ana only understood when Fareeha shot her a glare...revealing a brief glimpse at the faintest quirk of her lips.
"I hate you."
"Well. For what it's worth, I still love you, little one."
"Don't." Fareeha's reply came too suddenly, almost as a knee-jerk reflex. "I...don't."
Is it so hard to hear? Ana wanted to ask, but bit her tongue while Fareeha continued pacing. When her daughter showed no signs of calming down, she ventured, "You mind if I respond to what you said?"
Fareeha's shoulders rose and fell heavily, then she gestured for Ana to continue without looking back.
"You're right – I spent too little time with you and mama while I was with Overwatch. It's the one thing I regret most, but it also wasn't something that I could change. No matter how much I wanted to."
"I know," was Fareeha's curt reply. "But even when mama asked you to retire, you didn't."
"I didn't," Ana said. "A force of habit, I suppose. Being in that office in Zurich, it always seemed my work would never be done." She fell silent for a while, thinking. "The most important reason why I joined Overwatch and the Strike Team before, was because I wanted to protect my family. I saw with my own eyes how so many lives were taken, families torn apart during the Omnic Crisis, and it was only logical for me to fight on the frontlines, to make sure nothing could touch you or mama. And when the crisis was over, I stayed because my experience told me that was where and how I could best protect the two of you. That was how I could keep any danger at bay, before it could reach you."
"That's why I didn't listen to your mother. I've been on the frontlines far too long for me to know any better way to keep you safe."
"We are safe," Fareeha bit back, shooting another sharp glance.
"Only because there was always someone fighting to keep you so."
Fareeha heaved a sigh, then continued pacing, arms crossed.
"You want to know why I raised you to idolise 'heroes', only to smack you back down?" Ana said quietly. "I realised I made a mistake, in shaping your dreams to look like us. The world hailed us as heroes, sure. But no one saw our blood-covered hands until much later, and then they started painting us as warmongers for all that we've done to keep the peace."
"And, I do admit, we have done...questionable things for that goal. Everything I've done, everything I've seen; it would've torn your rosy image of us apart."
"I've been in the army. I know how dirty it can get–"
"No," Ana interrupted tiredly. "No, you don't. No one but those in the Strike Team, or the politicians yanking at our chains do."
Fareeha slowed in her steps, finally looking back at Ana, when her mother couldn't lift her gaze from the floor.
"I always said I wanted to protect you from harm, that I would never forgive myself if you got irreparably damaged from following in my footsteps. But that's only half the story. Your heart is good, Fareeha, and you should stay close to the ground with it, where you can do the most good. Climb any higher, and I assure you, it will be tainted – no matter how noble you think your character is."
She tilted her head back slightly to meet Fareeha's gaze, tinged by doubt, and her lips curved in a mute, cynical smile. "Don't believe me? Even our noble Crusader has done things that keep him up at night. Like all the rest of us."
Fareeha frowned. "Is that why Overwatch kicked him out?"
"It's...not that simple. What we did was as much for us, as it was for his own good." All of a sudden, Ana felt indescribably tired. She needed to lie down, rest her head. She'd needed to do so for a long time, but she wasn't quite done.
"And, about my 'dying'. I don't have a good explanation for that." Ana leaned forward, elbows on knees. "One moment I thought I was going to die from the pain alone, and the next, I woke up in a hospital to the news that the Zurich HQ exploded and took my friends' lives. That everything I'd worked for had been torn down in the time I'd been unconscious. It was...not an easy time."
"I'd failed. All my greatest accomplishments had come crashing down. I...didn't see a way to move forward, to continue as I was. And like I said, I thought it'd be for the best if everyone thought I was dead."
"Obviously it wasn't."
"Obviously," Ana conceded with the faintest whiff of a laugh. "I seem incapable of good decisions lately."
"'Lately'?"
"Oh, give me a break." Ana leaned back, sighing as the chair creaked under her weight. "This is a lot for me to handle too."
They stayed in silence for a long while and, oddly enough, Ana thought this was the most comfortable they'd been since she'd returned, with their grievances uttered and lying on the floor around them.
"You know what?" Fareeha spoke. "That actually made me...feel better. So I'll give that one to you."
"Thanks."
"But my point still stands – all of that's been said and done. And there's nothing you can do to...undo, amend, or anything else about them." Fareeha crossed her arms again, eyes flickering away in hesitation. "Mama hasn't told me. Are you leaving?"
"Yes."
"Yeah, I knew it." Fareeha fell back into silence, and Ana chanced a glance at the anger still simmering in her daughter's eyes – fainter now, but still there. "You know what? I'm just gonna...not care about anything you do. I'm gonna assume you're still the same until–" A pause. "You wanna make things better? Alright – be different from how you were when Overwatch still existed."
"That's many years' worth of unlearning, right there."
"Yeah. And that's how I'll know if you're sincere. Which, by the way, you're off to a bad start on."
"It's just...one last mission for me, Fareeha. A loose end I have to tie up before I can stay with a clear conscience. After that, I promise I'll be back for good."
"I've heard enough empty promises from you, so you'll forgive me for not believing that."
Ana smiled. "That's fine."
Fareeha stared at her longer, exhaling a breath through her nose. Then she closed her eyes, shook her head, and made for the door. "God preserve me, I never want to do this shit again."
"I think that went pretty well," Ana called after her daughter's back as Fareeha stepped out.
"Never again."
Perhaps buoyed by her success with Fareeha – such as it was – Ana gathered her courage to approach Kamilah once more. She tried a short but audible knock on the bedroom door, then peered through the crack to catch Kamilah's curious gaze. Watching her casual curiosity disappear beneath a placid mask gave Ana a twinge that nearly hurt, but when Kamilah jerked her head in a curt nod, Ana slipped in, closing the door quietly behind herself.
Kamilah had her back to Ana, facing the window, but Ana ploughed on anyway.
"Milah, it's been a while. I just want to check on you." The awkward silence made her wring her fingers. "I don't know what to say to make you feel better about my…"
"Then don't," Kamilah said. "I don't want to hear it anymore."
"I'm sorry." Ana nearly shrunk away when her wife turned around to fix her with a quiet, sharp gaze.
"I know you are. And yet…" Kamilah's voice faded away and, much to Ana's surprise, she took one slow step after another, closing the distance. She reached for Ana unexpectedly, and paused when Ana flinched away in reflex.
Ana caught herself, aware of how her heart beat harder, faster, and knew this wasn't some stomach flutters from intimacy. Her own hand was raised as if to ward Kamilah off, but she forced herself to lower it.
"Sorry," Ana uttered, and stood her ground when Kamilah's fingers touched her cheek for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Its warmth was welcome, yet she felt like folding into herself, away from the touch. She didn't deserve this – not yet. If ever.
Fingertips brush her thick bang of white hair back, tucking it behind an ear, and Ana knew what Kamilah intended. Despite every instinct demanding that she step back, Ana kept still as Kamilah worried at the edges of her eyepatch. Kamilah lingered, as if waiting for a sign that she should stop, and when Ana gave none, she pulled the eyepatch gently from Ana's head.
By now, Ana's eye was stubbornly fixed on the floor. Kamilah's fingers brushed over the scars around her empty eye socket, and she tilted her head just a fraction away from her wife's touch, before stopping herself. Ana held herself rigidly still as Kamilah peered at her in silence, then surprise lifted her chin when Kamilah cupped her cheek gently.
Meeting Kamilah's dark eyes, shadowed with thoughts unspoken, set off Ana's flight instinct. But habit from years of conflict allowed her to quell it, and instead she rasped, "Not as pretty as before, I know."
A half-hearted attempt to distract from her acute self-consciousness, and she saw the corners of Kamilah's eyes crinkle.
"Nonsense," came Kamilah's reply, whisper-soft, before her hand fell away from Ana – who already yearned for her touch once more.
Returning Ana's eyepatch, Kamilah put some distance between themselves once more, turning back to the window. Ana heard her take a breath, then sigh.
"Do what you have to do," Kamilah said, still quiet. "I won't hold you back."
Fareeha didn't react with anything other than a grunt, when Ana told of her impending departure. The girl's said all she wanted to, after all, and had no desire for another exhausting heart-to-heart. In fact, she shared her mother's reaction – though Kamilah caught Ana in the middle of packing her bags, the night before her departure.
"For the sake of my own sanity," Kamilah began, voice hushed. "When you walk out that door...I'll assume that you're dead. You'll be dead to me until you come back, got it?"
Ana gave her a wan smile. "Yes, Colonel. And...Milah," she added, when Kamilah was halfway out the door, bringing her wife to a stop.
I'm sorry. I know it hurts you. But I'll be back, I swear.
All that she wanted to say, merely hollow promises to Kamilah's ears. So she changed tack, "How do you feel about cake when I get back?"
Jack was nice enough to have left behind a comms device for her in the Necropolis, tuned to an encrypted frequency for them to communicate when needed. He didn't leave any kind of info in this device, which looked like any regular holopad with an empty storage, and the only message written in it was: 'Ping when ready.'
So Ana sent a signal to its partner device, and set to work packing another set of belongings, ready for work in...wherever Jack was right now. She'd arrived in the Necropolis at noon, but her device only came alight with a reply after she'd woken from a nap in the evening, sitting blearily in a corner with her family in her thoughts. She stared at the holopad as the blue ring of light faded from its thumbpad, wondering if this decision really was the right one, before she buried it deep and lifted the pad.
Jack hadn't sent a message – merely a one-way e-ticket for a flight to St. Petersburg, Russia. Huh. Part of Ana wanted to knock Jack upside the head for so little information, but she understood his caution. Their target was Reaper, and this meant meddling in Talon's affairs. Even in Overwatch, with all their high-tech A.I.-supported security measures, Talon had managed to siphon key information from their databanks time to time. Their personal communications could be easily breached by any hacker with enough skill, so being vague was merely precaution.
So Ana assumed her identity of a regular civilian once more – an old, hunchbacked grandmother who was visiting her son's family in Russia. She did rather enjoy concocting stories to tell customs officers who bothered to ask, and she let it show in a toothy grin as she was waved on to join another queue beyond the counter.
The flight didn't take long – mercifully giving Ana little time to dwell on her family back in Cairo – and when she walked out of the departure hall, she found Jack waiting for her. The man was rather inconspicuous in a parka and worn jeans, with a baseball cap on his head and sunglasses. A smile broke across his stoic, scarred features as he hugged Ana in greeting, two old friends reuniting, before he pulled her luggage, leading the way to the carpark.
He'd acquired a small car for use this time, and he drove Ana to an Overwatch safehouse within the city. Only when they'd shut the reinforced door behind them, did Jack feel safe enough to start talking. He'd spent the last couple of months sniffing out Reaper's trail, and tracked it all the way here. Talon would launch an assault on a Volskaya Industries mech factory within the week, and his plan was not to interfere. They'd allow Talon to complete their operation, in hopes of picking up Reaper's trail – which had gone cold despite Jack's best efforts, until recently.
Ana sat with her partner while he gave the mission brief, flashing on the mission computer's screen pages of the case file he'd assembled. When he showed the dossiers of Talon agents involved in this mission, it gave Ana pause. Much of the information was redacted, as Jack had stolen it from a low-ranking Talon officer, but it was enough to work on. The first was Gabriel, masked as the Reaper even in his own file. The second was a young hacker named Sombra, who wore a cocky smirk on her face which might have resonated with a much younger Ana Amari. And the third–
Ana's hand slammed down on Jack's wrist, as she stared up at the gold-eyed, blue-skinned visage of Amelie Lacroix. Or 'Widowmaker', the irony dripping off the name did not escape Ana.
When she remained staring at the photo of her would've-been killer, Jack rumbled, "I know, Ana. But we'll have to let her go this time."
Ana clenched her jaw, dragging her eyes away from the screen to look at Jack. She relented with a stiff nod, and Jack switched the screen off with a swipe of his hand over the dashboard.
"You alright, Ana?"
"I'm fine." Ana drew a deep breath, and exhaled, releasing the tension in her shoulders. "I'm fine," she repeated. "Let's stay focused on Gabriel. She is...secondary."
"Good plan."
"That's not really a plan, Jack. Don't patronise me so much." Ana shot him an incredulous glance, then patted his shoulder. "Let's do this. Try not to fuck up and get us both killed, yeah?"
"Yeah." Jack smiled. His eyes flickered away as she stood from the chair. "I haven't asked what happened in Cairo…"
"Disowned 'til I return. For good," Ana said simply, stretching her back. "So, like I said."
"Don't fuck up and get us killed. Got it."
It'd only been two days since Ana's departure. Naturally, Kamilah had lost the first night's sleep, and probably was about to lose another. She lay in bed with a book in her hand, which she couldn't focus on while her mind kept wandering back to her wayward, vigilante wife. She'd decided to assume Ana was dead, yes, even told her wife so. But the heart wants something distinctly different, and she was very tempted to give herself a slap in the face. Ana had returned, then ran off on her own mission again. Just like before. Her mouth spoke nothing but love for her family, but her actions spoke a whole different story.
Kamilah's lips thinned, and as she was starting to get angrier at her wife, Fareeha poked her head through the open door.
"Can I come in?"
"Can you," Kamilah replied drily, earning a chortle from her daughter.
Fareeha made for the bed and wriggled under the covers, taking the purple dragon plush from where it lay in Ana's spot, so she could lie down. She held it aloft, playing with the blunt horns on its head, and snorted.
"He's resuming his duty of being a wife's stand-in, huh."
"He never stopped," Kamilah deadpanned.
Fareeha laughed, albeit with a tinge of bitterness. "Yeah…"
Then she sighed, hugging the dragon to her chest as she stared up at the ceiling. "You wanna hear something crazy?"
"Crazier than my dead wife turning out to be alive?"
"Well, maybe not that crazy, but…" Fareeha sighed again, turning onto her side to face Kamilah. "Part of me wants to track her down and help her do whatever she needs to do."
Kamilah glanced at her daughter, face impassive. "What did she tell you?"
"She just said it was one last mission."
Still protecting her daughter. Kamilah thought it over, then chose not to speak more of it. "And you want to help her?"
"Weird, I know. But knowing she's alive, I just… It feels like I shouldn't let her slip away again."
"Then you should've tied her up before she left."
"Let's be real, she would've found some way to escape even then."
"True. She always was resourceful."
A moment's silence as Fareeha played with the dragon plush, and Kamilah pretended to read her book.
"You think she'll be back?" Fareeha asked, voice smaller than Kamilah had ever heard it.
She glanced down at her daughter, who's still staring at the plush, and she could just see a faint resemblance to the young girl who'd missed her mother so often.
"If she doesn't show up back here, I'll go to her tombstone and kick it over."
Fareeha giggled. "Remember to bring me along."
"You'll be the one driving me there." Kamilah smiled, smoothing a hand over her daughter's hair. "Stop worrying over your ami, alright? It's been tiring enough to have her around."
"When has it never?"
Good point, Kamilah agreed drily. She couldn't think of the last time Ana's presence hadn't brought some emotional baggage with it. But she bit down her words, and instead tweaked her daughter's ear in mock chide, earning yet another giggle from Fareeha.