everyone has deep-seated issues that no one talks about because everyone's an idiot :3
Angela quietly hummed to herself, some random tune while she was busy cataloging yet another batch of samples. This round of trials for her updated nanite firmware turned out quite insightful. Not quite there yet, but it gave her a very good idea on where to do some tweaking.
She was interrupted in her work by a disembodied voice: "You have an urgent call from the away team, Dr. Ziegler."
"Thank you, Athena. Put it through on speakers."
There was a moment of static before the connection went through.
"Oi Angela!" Lena's chirpy voice sounded through the room. That was a good sign.
"Before you start to worry, it's nothing serious. Just Captain Amari needing some attention when we get back."
That got her attention. "What's happened to Fareeha?" she asked, samples all but forgotten.
"Oh, no no no," Lena replied quickly, "Captain Amari senior."
Angela deflated, leaning back into her chair. "Right. Have her come by first thing after you get back. And tell the others not to ditch their post-op check ups, either! You all know I'll get you eventually."
Lena laughed and signed off, getting back to flying the VTOL.
'And this could have been such a nice day.'
"So what happened?" Angela asked with as dispassionate a voice as she could muster, inspecting the angry red skin on Ana's abdomen.
"Nothing serious. I was just too slow in taking out a sniper. He got me first."
Angela merely hummed in acknowledgment while passing her handheld scanner over the site.
"You used one of your darts on the wound?"
Ana sighed, not liking where this conversation was heading. "Yes, I did, and I'm fine. I don't even know why I'm here, wasting your time."
Angela righted herself from her hunched-over position, eyes narrowed. "This hasn't been the first time you treated a bullet wound like this, has it?"
"Yes, of course. I couldn't very well waltz into any doctor's office when everyone thought I was dead. And the darts helped just fine. Your tech is doing good work."
She threw in a smile for good measure, hoping to placate the doctor. It didn't seem to work. Angela rummaged through a cart by the bedside and pulled out a device that looked like an oversized pen.
"Hold out a finger, please."
"This doesn't have anything to do with me being shot, does it?" Ana asked, certain that this was just Angela's way of subtly punishing her.
The blonde sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose before fixing Ana with a glare. "You got shot on a mission. I'm the resident doctor. It is my duty to treat you for any conditions that might impair your mission readiness, and if you don't cooperate I won't clear you for active duty. So just give me. Your damn. Finger!"
Ana briefly considered being stubborn just to spite Angela, but that wouldn't get either of them anywhere. She held out her hand and Angela quickly brought down the device on the tip of her thumb. She felt a short prick before the instrument was withdrawn, wound already being sealed by the nanites administered along with the needle.
Angela looked at the display, her frown deepening.
"How often have you been shot in the last eight years? How many of the bullets are still in your body?"
Ana was taken aback by the question. "I, uh, I don't know. Five or six times, I'm not sure. Why? What does this have to do with anything?"
Angela ignored her question and fired off more of her own. "Have you been having headaches? Joint pains? Abdominal pain? You've been getting slower lately, right? Your reflexes aren't what they used to be, that's why that sniper got you. Right?"
Ana considered briefly, but couldn't for the life of her think of how this would be relevant for treating a simple bullet wound. Which was already closed.
"Yes, I guess, but...I'm not as young as I used to be. It's to be expected."
Angela let loose a sardonic laugh, shaking her head briefly before she shoved the device into Ana's face, forcing her to read the display.
Pl: 99 mcg/dL
"You are getting older, yes. And you have lead poising from the five or six bullets, I don't know stuck in your body."
Ana could almost hear the air quotes. But Angela wasn't done.
"This is why you go to see a doctor if you've been shot. Why you don't treat yourself with technology you don't understand, technology that you've stolen. Do you even know how damn lucky you are?! Bullet fragments love nothing more than traveling around your body and fucking shit up! At any time in the last years one of these things could have gotten loose in your bloodstream, traveled to your heart, your lungs, your kidneys, your neck... Don't you think it would be difficult to breathe with a hole in your lungs, pump blood with a piece of metal blocking one of your heart valves?"
Ana had been sitting still like a rock throughout Angela's tirade. She'd had no idea. "I...I didn't..."
"You didn't know, yes. Because you don't have a medical degree. Because you don't know how the nanites in those darts work. Because you went on your damn crusade without thinking twice about the consequences. Without thinking twice about the people you left behind!"
"Don't you dare!" Suddenly she was standing up, face inches away from Angela's and contorted in an ugly snarl.
"Every day for these past eight years I've been thinking of Fareeha. Every day I wanted nothing more than to just go back, tell Fareeha how proud I am of her, of what she has achieved! Thinking of her was the only thing that kept me going, fighting for a better world for my daughter. You don't get to tell me how bad a mother I've been when you have no idea of what I've sacrificed for her!"
Ana had expected a lot of things at this point. An icy glare accompanied by silence, Angela yelling right back at her with a volume few thought possible for the lithe doctor, some small part of her mind even prepared for getting punched in the face. Which explained why she was so thrown when, instead of any of these things, Angela smiled sadly. She had seen that smile on the blonde before, in the days of old Overwatch. When she had to deliver bad news to family and friends, telling soldiers that, despite her best efforts, their squad-mate hadn't made it. Her eyebrows were drawn together in a light frown, the corners of her mouth ever so lightly upturned, and her eyes were like crystal clear pools of sympathy and compassion. They probably taught that expression in med school, because it was the perfect non-verbal message of 'I'm about to tell you something you never wanted to hear, and I know the pain you're in right now, a pain that no words can soothe, but I'm gonna try anyway'
Though she was pretty sure Angela would skip that last part.
"You haven't talked to Fareeha for eleven years. And only written short, terse letters for three years before that, ever since she joined the army. You sacrificed fourteen birthdays you could have spent with your daughter. You sacrificed holding her when she got her entire squad killed because she was ordered to hold that damn bridge. You sacrificed advising her when she agonized over whether to leave the army for Helix. You sacrificed attending every single promotion or award ceremony, simply out of spite because Fareeha, a grown woman, had dared to disobey you."
Angela leaned heavily against the sick bed behind her, and for once she actually looked like someone at the end of her thirties, not twenty-five.
"You sacrificed sitting by her side and holding her hand while she had to spend months in rehab, learning how to walk and run and jump with a prosthetic leg. You sacrificed being there for her when she had her other leg removed so she could become a Raptora pilot."
That one hurt. She hadn't known just how much Fareeha had sacrificed to become one of the select few, the best of the best. She realized Angela's sad smile wasn't meant for her. Its intended recipient was in the armory, cleaning and maintaining her Raptora suit.
And so she wasn't surprised when that smile fell, gave way to a carefully blank expression.
"You talk of your great many sacrifices, when you only sacrificed one thing: being a mother to your daughter. You didn't do any of these things for her, you did it for yourself. To satisfy your twisted sense of self-righteousness, to feel like you still mattered in a world that had forgotten you. And now, now you think you can just waltz back into her life, make a grand show of how much you care for her, of what you sacrificed for her sake, and think she'll just forgive and forget almost one and a half decade of disdain and abandonment."
It was eerily quiet in the med bay. Ana would never admit it, but Angela's words had struck deeper than she had ever thought possible. She wanted to say something, anything to defend herself, to justify her actions, but she just couldn't think of something. Angela had always been too smart, too observant for her own good. With just a one-sided, five-minute tirade she had made Ana question every single one of her decisions in the last few years.
Thankfully, it seemed like she was done.
"Lie down on the bed, I'll need to x-ray your entire body so I know where those five or six bullets are hiding. They're coming out tomorrow. We'll start chelation therapy after the surgery, and you'll be back to your old, manipulative self in no time."
Angela turned to walk away, but stopped at the privacy curtain and faced her once more.
"You know what the sad thing is, though? It will work."
Ana looked at her, confusion written clearly on her face, but didn't get the time to pose a question.
"She'll rage and scream and yell at you, but in a few weeks she'll forgive and forget. Just like you wanted. Because, despite everything you did to her, she yearns to have her mother back in her life. She worked so hard to step out of your shadow, to be Captain Fareeha Amari, decorated war veteran, protector of the innocent; and not just Ana Amari's daughter. And she'd throw all of it away in a heartbeat for a single 'I'm proud of you'. And I'll do my very best not to hate your guts because god knows she doesn't need any more of that drama in her life. She deserves heaven and the earth and everything in between, but all she's got is the two of us. So try and don't fuck it up this time."
With that, Angela drew the curtain and walked off, leaving Ana in an oddly familiar scene that still felt altogether different.
Fareeha panted heavily as her fist connected yet again, sending the punching bag straining against its tethers, bouncing back just in time to catch the blow from her other fist. She was covered in sweat and a few strands of hair were plastered on her forehead, having come loose from the tight ponytail she'd trapped them in. Faster and faster the jabs came, with more force and louder grunts, but still it didn't feel right.
Her right fist would connect just a fraction of a second too early than she'd expect, than she'd been used to. She could throw much harder punches with it on account of it being solid titanium, yes, but that didn't matter when she couldn't have them land precisely where she wanted them to.
The rational part of her brain reminded her that this was to be expected, and just an adjustment period. In a few months' time she would occasionally even forget she ever lost her hand, because the prosthesis had become second nature to her. Just like her legs.
And during those few months? she thought bitterly, flying into yet another quick one-two combination, not stopping for even a moment.
I missed over thirty per cent of my shots today, because I couldn't feel my trigger's actuation point.
Feint right, hook left.
Twenty nine rockets, hitting nothing. Because I was lucky.
High-kick right.
All it takes is one errant rocket, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Block left, jab right.
I'm Captain Fareeha Amari, call sign Pharah, embodiment of justice. I don't cause collateral damage!
She stilled for a moment, and an insidious voice popped into her head.
You do now.
Fareeha gave a mighty roar and reared her arm back, delivering a brutal punch that would have shattered bones like china. The tether snapped and the bag fell to the ground uselessly. But she still wasn't done. Something stirred within her, something primal, something that wasn't satisfied with ruining a measly punching bag. She turned to a weight bench and gave a mighty heave, sending it crashing into a nearby treadmill. Had she been thinking clearly, she would have been impressed by how far she had actually thrown it.
But she wasn't thinking clearly, and all she could see was the cold gunmetal blue sticking out of her wrist. It was all just too much. She tore the hand off, ignoring the sharp pain of removing it without properly disconnecting it first, and flung it away with all her might.
The red haze vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and she was left with inspecting just how foolish she had been. The treadmill was ruined, as was the floor-to-ceiling mirror her prosthetic had crashed into. And the catharsis she had expected wasn't there. She just felt empty. Empty and embarrassed and miserable.
The exertion caught up to her, and she felt wobbly on her feet all of sudden. She quickly collapsed onto another weight bench, pressing her head into her hands. Hand. Force of habit. She would have laughed if she hadn't been afraid it would devolve into a hysterical crying fit. And she was better than that. She was...
"Fareeha!"
Her head swiveled to the entrance of the gym, and saw the last person she wanted to be seen by in this state.
"What happened?" Ana asked, hurrying to her side.
Her gaze involuntarily shot towards the prosthetic, lying discarded amongst mirror shards on the other side of the room. And of course, Ana being Ana, she caught the movement, quickly connecting the dots.
She crouched in front of Fareeha taking her left hand into both of hers, and looked at her with such a tender expression it almost physically hurt the younger Amari.
"Oh my dear malak, what have they done to you?" she whispered, leaning forward to catch her daughter in an impossibly tight embrace. An embrace that was supposed to say so many things she couldn't properly put into words. So many 'I'm sorry's and 'I love you's and 'I'm proud of you's that had been left unsaid over the years, so many missed opportunities that could never be brought back.
"I never wanted any of this for you." she said quietly into her daughter's hair, stricken by how much of her body had been taken by war and violence.
Ana was surprised by the firm shove that sent her onto her butt, fighting to keep her balance.
"So this is what it's about, mother?!" Fareeha spat, bitterness coating each one of her words.
"You come back after all these years, after all this time of me thinking I'm not good enough for you to waste your time to even just write a letter every now and then; and it's still only about what you wanted for me?"
Realization dawned on Ana, and she cursed herself for this foolish mistake. "I didn't mean it like that, habibti, please understand."
"No, mother, you meant it exactly like that, don't try to fool me! You never approved of anything I did. It was always about your dream for my future, your visions of the grand things I would accomplish as a doctor or an engineer or an astronaut. You never considered what I wanted to do with my life, not even once. Have you ever wasted even a second to think that maybe, just maybe, this is exactly what I wanted out of my life?"
Fareeha had gotten up and started to pace, and even a deaf person could have seen her agitation in her jerky movements, the way her arms flailed around in wild arcs while she gestured along to her words.
"I do what you taught me to do. I protect innocent lives, the only way I know how. I've sacrificed more than you will ever know to keep this world and its people safe, and all you can think of is devaluing my entire life's work by saying, yet again, how you never wanted any of this for me."
She stopped her nervous stalking and looked at her mother, sitting on the floor wide-eyed, and tiredly shook her head.
"You haven't changed one bit. It's still only about what you think is best for everyone else. Why did you even come back if you still don't care about me, but what I could have become?"
Ana got up, fighting desperately to keep the tears at bay, and tried to think of anything to convince her daughter that 'no, you've got it all wrong, I care only about you, about the wonderful woman you have become', but didn't get a chance to say even a syllable.
"I don't want to hear it." Fareeha said with her back turned, cutting off anything Ana might have wanted to get out. "No matter what it is, I wouldn't believe you anyway. Just get out."
Her mother would not be deterred. "Fareeha, please, just give me..."
Fareeha whirled around eyes red and filling with tears. "No, Ana, I won't give you anything. Just leave me alone!"
Ana recoiled as if she'd been bitten by a snake, unable to form even a coherent thought, let alone any words. So she acquiesced, turning around and walking to the door, throwing back a last, suffering look at her daughter before she left.
Fareeha managed to remain calm until the door fell closed before she broke down, falling to her knees and sobbing openly.
She leaned against one of the pillars, the spot chosen specifically because it couldn't be seen from the doors, and hugged her knees to her chest. She didn't know how much time had passed since her mother had left, but it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes when the doors opened again. The harsh sound made her flinch. She was in no condition to face anyone right now, let alone argue with her mother if she'd chosen to come back.
"Bärli?"
Angela's voice made her flinch. She was the at the same time first and last person she wanted to see right now.
"I know you're in here, Fareeha. Talk to me." she called softly, trying to ignore the mess. She heard a shuffling sound and her gaze zeroed in on the source, scouring the room until she spotted just the tip of an elbow peeking out behind one of the pillars.
She came face to face with her girlfriend, and couldn't help the pained smile blooming on her face.
"You look like a mess."
Fareeha snorted, hiding her face behind her knees and sniffling. "You think so?"
Angela knelt down next to her and scooped her into her arms, tucking her head against her neck and running her hand through Fareeha's hair, a consistent and calming motion.
"Yeah, but you're my mess."
Fareeha laughed again before it dissolved into small sniffles, and it wasn't long before Angela felt the wetness against her neck, slowly rocking them both and holding Fareeha as tightly as she could.
"It's okay, sweetheart, I've got you. You're okay."
She didn't tell her that it had been Ana who had approached her, looking stricken like never before, and had quietly said that 'Fareeha needs her girlfriend right now.'
Bringing up Ana would be counterproductive in this situation. At least that's what she told herself.
"Bärli" = little bear in german/swiss german
for some reason I like to take strong, independent women, and make them cry. I have issues ._.
chapter title is taken from A Silver Mt. Zion's Goodbye Desolate Railyard. Song of the day is also from a silver mt. Zion: mountains made of steam.
I also have a now. If you want to waste your money supporting me, find out more on my profile page.
Cheers :)