Mercy

'Dr. Ziegler! Dr. Ziegler! We're here! We've brought your patient!'

'Is he unconscious?'

'…Dead, Doctor.'

'Pardon?'

'Strangled in his own home. We flew him here as soon as the body was found.'

'Gerard…'

'So, you've heard already?'

'I read the report hours ago. But…'

'We worked very closely with him, Doctor. He was on the brink of bringing Talon down. You must save him!'

'…'

'Doctor!'

'…Cover him back up. There's nothing I can do. Give him a proper burial for goodness sake.'

'But you can revive the dead! You're legendary for it!'

'Fictitious tales woven from hearsay. I can do no such thing.'

'What!?'

'Surely you were told when stating your reason for coming to me.'

'…We assumed it was ignorance on the guard's part.'

'Indeed. Thus, they allowed you to hear it from my mouth personally. How considerate.'

'Can't you at least try? You've done such a thing before, haven't you?'

'No. I can bring humans back from the edge of death, but there is a highly sensitive timeframe to which I can perform such a miracle. Not only that, but…'

'What is it?'

'Nothing. Nothing at all.'

'Then…Gerard…'

'He was a good man. A valuable agent. If I could, I would, but once the spark of life vanishes, there is nothing I can do. Nothing whatsoever…'

Fareeha was successfully pulled out from the sea by Casino. Angela couldn't remember much after that. Her body denied her, sending her into mental recovery long enough for her to awaken in a medical facility of some kind. She sprung up from the bed, slightly sore from the battle prior, but more panicked than she was accustomed to.

'Angela!' Hana popped up from a chair nearby.

'Where's Fareeha?' Angela asked – nearly demanding to know.

'Oh…um…'

'Where is she?' Her voice cracked, the world fading in and out of focus.

'She's…in the operation room, but…'

'Show me.'

Perhaps Dva was under the same disillusion that the world wished to believe. Dr. Angela Ziegler could revive the dead. A miracle worker. A lie built on hope and fantasy. She could save the dying. She could mend wounds thought impossible to cure within such a short period of time, but death was all encompassing. Not even she could deny it. Delay it, surely, and that's why she was so notorious, but certainly not stop it entirely.

Not even for the woman of her dreams and the love of her life.

'Show me…please.' Angela begged.

'Okay. But…it's bad. Really bad.'

Hold the tears. She had cried enough. Her throat hurt she had screamed so deliriously. Focus on what could be done. So long as there was a fragment of life left in her, Angela would pour her entire being into saving Fareeha Amari.

She was brought through the hospital, not even noticing the way she was stared at. Admired. Gawked. Envied. Two incredible women moving side by side, hardly being questioned when approaching the operation room. They were allowed access immediately, likely due to the fact no operation was truly taking place.

'Let me see her.' Angela commanded, placing a hand over her chest and feeling the dog tag beneath her armour.

No less than four doctors stepped away from the table, and Angela held her breath. She noted the pile of armour nearby. The Raptora suit. It was in shambles. Hints of the blue and gold remained, but otherwise, a sickening crimson caked too much of the thing.

No…

Angela scanned the projected monitors, consuming the information they provided. Collapsed lung. Broken spine. Traumatic brain damage.

God, no…

Punctured liver. Broken arm. Broken neck.

Please. Not again…

Severe puncture wounds to the head, neck, shoulder, arm, and hip. Primarily left side.

Why…?

Internal bleeding. Heart failure. Multiple causes of death.

Angela didn't feel the ground when her knees slammed into it. She gripped at the bed her knight lay upon and pulled herself up, Hana at her side and saying something, but none of it registering.

'H-how…long…?' Angela whimpered hysterically.

'What do you mean?' Dva responded gently.

'Since time…of death?'

A beat, but one of the doctors answered with a thick accent eventually.

'It's been estimated she died almost immediately upon impact. The armour softened the blow slightly, but it also pierced her body when it broke apart from the attack. There was nothing we could do…'

Angela closed her eyes, pulling herself up and knowing the tears were coming. She couldn't not think about her lover. Her kind smile. Her gallant mannerisms. Her strong presence. Her considerate attitude. Her gentle touch. Her dark eyes. Her sincere love and interest in Angela. Her fascination with music. Her complex relationship with her mother. Her desire to protect the innocent. Her bravery. Her awkwardness. Her honesty.

'Ah…' Angela's body prickled, and she opened her eyes, a blow pounding her stomach, ripping into her bowels and pulling out her organs as she covered her mouth, dry heaving at the sight.

Her beautiful, courageous knight had been broken utterly. Not even the haphazard job of bandaging to suppress the blood loss could hide the destruction caused to her entire being. It was too much. The contrast was shattering her soul. The images in Angela's head of this woman weren't aligning with the bloody mess before her. The stillness of her visage tore into the doctor, and she swallowed the vomit threatening to explode from her throat. This young girl had been so affectionate. So loving. So full of ambition and kindness. And here she lay, never to smile again; to look at Angela with a love the doctor hardly thought she would experience for the rest of her life.

'Dr. Ziegler. Would you like some privacy?'

Angela nodded slowly, her cheeks soaked, and her lips sucked in.

'We'll just be outside.' Hana touched Angela's shoulder.

The door slid shut, and Angela let herself release the pent-up despair. She knelt next to the bed, gripping at Fareeha's cold, lifeless hand, squeezing so tightly her own limb went numb.

'Say my name, Fareeha…' She cried. 'Please.'

Nothing.

'Say you love me. Say it in the way that I can do nothing but believe you…'

Silence.

'Take me to a place I thought extinct from my life only to provide me with the opportunity to say "goodbye" proper. Prove again just how impossible it is for me not to love you wholeheartedly back.'

The soldier was unmoving.

'Touch me…' Angela gasped. 'Hold me…'

Not a sound.

'Be by my side…forever…'

She soaked Fareeha's hand with her tears, a fury overtaking the doctor the more she trembled. She asked for so little, yet even then she was forsaken? Truly? How any lives had she saved? How many times did she put herself last? Was it too much to ask for but one person in her life to return home to? One person she could be her total self with? One person to be her best friend? Lover? Partner in life? Was she being mocked? She was a scientist, thus, the notion of ethereal intervention hardly occupied a thought, but the irony of it all was maddening, and Angela grit her teeth, a pulsation pumping through her brain the further her rage took her.

'So be it…' She hissed, knowing this wrath. Feeling it anew. Angela had lost her sister. It was her fault. She accepted that punishment. But this? No. Not this woman. Not Fareeha. Never. Death couldn't have her. Not yet. Not while Mercy drew breath. She wasn't a miracle worker. Science provided her with all her power. But this feat? This task she would pour her soul into? Yes. She would accept that perhaps a spiritual intervention was required.

Whatever the case, she wouldn't give up. Not yet. Not until she tried everything in her power as a legendary hero. As the woman who had saved thousands. Her only wish. Her only request. Her only selfish desire.

'It is my turn to save you, my knight. Save you as you saved me in so many ways.' She stood up, an aura of golden power emanating in direct correlation with her nanomachines speeding into overdrive. She mentally shifted all of her healing abilities into a plain she knew was dangerous. Into a territory she had accidently triggered once in desperation. It had made her ill for days. The recoil was too much. It was in that moment she began to realize her limitations. Her restricted time. Her power's quantitative output in exchange for her own life.

'You're my hero, Fareeha Amari.' Angela uttered, swallowing painfully, the thick power encircling her already demanding so much. 'And heroes…never…die…!'

The moment Angela placed her hands atop Fareeha as she had for Seung-hwa, however, a jolt of seeming electric repellant pushed her back, and the remnants of the charge left her trembling, struggling to breathe.

'What…on earth?' She observed her hands, and noted the strange darkness to them, her body itself literally rejecting the act she wished to attempt.

'Angela?' Hana returned, a couple of the doctors from before joining her.

'No…!' Angela clenched her fists, glaring toward Fareeha's still form and the table it lay over. 'You will do as I say.'

The risks are too great.

'Nothing is too great a risk for her!'

Your life will become dramatically compromised.

'What life is there for me without my love?'

A life where you continue to save others. Your purpose. Your gift.

'How dare you! After all I've given!?'

You're acting the child. What is one person's happiness over hundreds? Thousands? You are not so special.

'Yet, I'm the only one who can do it. Who was willing to do it.'

Was?

'I only have one life. I will not die a martyr. I am not a God. I will fulfill my duty for as long as I am here on this planet, but I will do so while clenching my own source of joy until my dying breath.'

For this woman? For this girl you hardly know?

'I know her better than any other person in my life prior. Even Gloria. Even my dearest sister. There is no mask with Fareeha. No filter. No lies. Nothing. She has seen me; all of me. She has taken me mind, body, and soul. I love her. It is humanity's greatest gift, and I shall not forsake myself further.'

What if you are to fall apart? What if you pass on without her?

'A cruel question to ask.'

You would force the agony you currently combat onto her?

'I won't.'

You will. By performing this act – this feat only beings of otherworldly power could hope to achieve – you shorten your life far beyond the current scope. You are, quite literally, giving her the spark which keeps your bodily functions in check.

'By how long?'

Many, many years.

'A quantitative number, please.'

Not even I would do such a thing.

'Then it is clear we are on the same page, after all.

…So, it would seem.

'No more hesitation.'

No more doubt.

'I strike down Death this day.'

Not just push away.

'I extend my hand to the needy.'

Enveloped in a holy light.

'Yet, in this moment – this very second of my one and only life – I give my hand to the one who matters most, selfish as it may be.'

It promises a future for many.

'Because now I can fight on as well…'

The ground was wet, cold, and sticky. She couldn't move. She couldn't hear. She could barely feel. Her head was twitching, spasming. Muffled, deep sounds emanated from around her. She was lifted up, placed on a stretcher, more distant sirens stabbing her mind. A montage of disbelief and fear. Stares of bewilderment; of envy, of hunger, of calculation.

Hana Song. What was she saying? Why couldn't Angela see properly? What was this crimson-black substance seeping out of her pours? Bleeding into her armour? Caking her body in a cold liquid already solidifying? Make the ringing stop. The echoing darkness hurt her ears.

The stretcher shifted, but Hana grabbed hold of it, indicating Fareeha's bed. Angela's vision flurried in and out of moderate focus, but she was moved parallel to the other woman. To Fareeha Amari.

And her heart skipped a beat.

Dark, tired, pained eyes stared back.

Was it worth it?

Without a singular doubt in my mind.

This pain is only the beginning.

So be it. For such pain is nothing when compared to the thought of my life without her.